What can body temperature tell us about energy homeostasis?

National Institute Of Diabetes And Digestive And Kidney Diseases

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Abstract

Body temperature is highly regulated in mammals. However, thermal biology in smaller mammals (such as mice) is different from that in larger mammals (such as adult humans). For example, when mice are singly housed at room temperature, about half of caloric intake is burned to maintain body temperature (referred to as cold-induced thermogenesis), while humans require little cold-induced thermogenesis. Upon fasting, mice can reduce their body temperature by >10 C, while humans with extreme starvation lower body temperature by only 0.2 C. We are exploring the use of body temperature as an indicator of the perceived metabolic status of the mouse. For example, what is the effect on body temperature of a genetic manipulation or drug treatment? What genetic manipulations or drug treatments cause dissociation of body temperature from nutritional status? What are the neurotransmitters and neural mechanisms involved? Mice are also an ideal model system to study hypothermia, as the central regulatory mechanisms are likely conserved across mammals, but the mice show much greater changes than larger mammals. Thus, mice are a more sensitive species that can suggest studies that might be productively undertaken in larger individuals such as adult humans. We are interested in the neural control of body temperature and hypothermia, and in understanding pharmacologic inducers of hypothermia. Progress in FY2021-22 includes the following: Understanding mouse thermal physiology informs the usefulness of mice as models of human disease. It is widely assumed that the mouse tail contributes greatly to heat loss (as it does in rat), but this has not been quantitated. We studied C57BL/6J mice after tail amputation. Tailless mice housed at 22 C did not differ from littermate controls in body weight, lean or fat content, or energy expenditure. With acute changes in ambient temperature from 19 to 39 C, tailless and control mice demonstrated similar body temperatures (Tb), metabolic rates, and heat conductances and no difference in thermoneutral point. Treatment with prazosin, an 1-adrenergic antagonist and vasodilator, increased tail temperature in control mice by up to 4.8 0.8 C. Comparing prazosin treatment in tailless and control mice suggested that the tails contribution to total heat loss was a non-significant 3.4 %. Major heat stress produced by treatment at 30 C with CL316243, a 3-adrenergic agonist, increased metabolic rate and Tb and at a matched increase in metabolic rate, the tailless mice showed a 0.72 0.14 C greater Tb increase and 7.6 % lower whole-body heat conductance. Thus, the mouse tail is a useful biomarker of vasodilation and thermoregulation, but in our experiments contributes only 5-8 % of whole-body heat dissipation, less than the 17 % reported for rat. Heat dissipation through the tail is important under extreme scenarios such as pharmacological activation of brown adipose tissue; however, non-tail contributions to heat loss may have been underestimated in the mouse.