Research
Hormonal
The p38δ kinase isoform promotes brown adipose tissue thermogenesis, and its deletion leads to obesity and reduced energy expenditure.
In mice, the p38δ protein is required for fat-burning. Removing it causes obesity. This suggests that maintaining or activating p38δ in fat tissue could be a potential strategy to prevent obesity, though no human treatments exist yet.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
lack of this kinase specifically in adipose tissue (p38δ Fab-KO) resulted in overweight together with reduced energy expenditure and lower body and skin surface temperature in the BAT region.
Why this rating
Strong evidence from p38δ knockout mice and in vitro adipocyte studies.
Source
p38α blocks brown adipose tissue thermogenesis through p38δ inhibition
Nuria Matesanz et al. · PLoS Biology · 2018
DOI 10.1371/journal.pbio.2004455
mechanism_onlyCited 47×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Deletion of the p38α kinase in adipose tissue protects against high-fat diet-induced obesity by increasing energy expenditure and brown adipose tissue (BAT) thermogenesis.Good
- In human visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue, p38α (Mapk14) mRNA levels inversely correlate with Body Mass Index (BMI) and positively correlate with UCP1 expression.Moderate
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