The Dio2 gene encodes the type 2 deiodinase (D2) that activates thyroxine (T4) to 3,3,5-triiodothyronine (T3), the disruption of which (Dio2 ؊/؊ ) results in brown adipose tissue (BAT)-specific hypothyroidism in an otherwise euthyroid animal. In the present studies, cold exposure increased Dio2 ؊/؊ BAT sympathetic stimulation ϳ10-fold (normal ϳ4-fold); as a result, lipolysis, as well as the mRNA levels of uncoupling protein 1, guanosine monophosphate reductase, and peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor ␥ coactivator 1, increased well above the levels detected in the coldexposed wild-type animals. The sustained Dio2 ؊/؊ BAT adrenergic hyperresponse suppressed the three-to fourfold stimulation of BAT lipogenesis normally seen after 24 -48 h in the cold. Pharmacological suppression of lipogenesis with ␤␤-methyl-substituted ␣--dicarboxylic acids of C14 -C18 in wild-type animals also impaired adaptive thermogenesis in the BAT. These data constitute the first evidence that reduced adrenergic responsiveness does not limit cold-induced adaptive thermogenesis. Instead, the resulting compensatory hyperadrenergic stimulation prevents the otherwise normal stimulation in BAT lipogenesis during cold exposure, rapidly exhausting the availability of fatty acids. The latter is the preponderant determinant of the impaired adaptive thermogenesis and hypothermia in cold-exposed Dio2 ؊/؊ mice. A dequate quantities of thyroid hormone are required for the maintenance of basal energy expenditure (1,2) and are also critical for adjustments in energy homeostasis during acute exposure to cold, without which survival is not possible (3). These adjustments in nonshivering adaptive thermogenesis are initiated by an increase in the activity of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). In human newborns and other small mammals, brown adipose tissue (BAT) is the main site of the sympathetic-mediated adaptive thermogenesis. During cold exposure, there is an acute ϳ50-fold increase in type 2 iodothyronine deiodinase (D2) activity in BAT that accelerates thyroxine (T4) to 3,3Ј,5-triiodothyronine (T3) conversion (4). This increases thyroid hormone receptor (TR) saturation and leads to intracellular thyrotoxicosis specifically in this tissue (5), which in turn increases adrenergic responsiveness (6 -8) in a feed-forward mechanism that allows BAT to produce heat in a sustainable manner.The current paradigm of thyroid-adrenergic synergism is based on the principle that hypothyroidism causes a generalized decrease in adrenergic responsiveness and, therefore, frustrates the homeostatic role of the SNS, including the stimulation of BAT (9,10). However, these studies are largely based on the hypothyroid animal as a model, which has serious limitations for this purpose. The reduced obligatory energy expenditure caused by systemic hypothyroidism leads to a generalized and gradual increase in sympathetic activity that, in the BAT, activates adaptive energy expenditure to sustain normal core temperature, even at room temperature (11). However, chronic norepi...

The type 3 iodothyronine selenodeiodinase (D3) is an integral membrane protein that inactivates thyroid hormones. By using immunofluorescence cytochemistry confocal microscopy of live or fixed cells transiently expressing FLAG-tagged human D3 or monkey hepatocarcinoma cells expressing endogenous D3, we identified D3 in the plasma membrane. It co-localizes with Na,K-ATPase ␣, with the early endosomal marker EEA-1 and clathrin, but not with two endoplasmic reticulum resident proteins. Most of the D3 molecule is extracellular and can be biotinylated with a cell-impermeant probe. There is constant internalization of D3 that is blocked by sucrose or methyl-␤-cyclodextrin-containing medium. Exposing cells to a weak base such as primaquine increases the pool of internalized D3, suggesting that D3 is recycled between plasma membrane and early endosomes. Such recycling could account for the much longer half-life of D3 (12 h) than the thyroxine activating members of the selenodeiodinase family, type 1 (D1; 8 h) or type 2 (D2; 2 h) deiodinase. The extracellular location of D3 gives ready access to circulating thyroid hormones, explaining its capacity for rapid inactivation of circulating thyroxine and triiodothyronine in patients with hemangiomas and its blockade of the access of maternal thyroid hormones to the human fetus.Thyroid tissue is confined to and is present in all vertebrates. Its role is to synthesize and secrete polyiodinated thyronine molecules that modulate gene expression in virtually every vertebrate tissue through ligand-dependent transcription factors. Thyroxine (T 4 ) 1 is the primary product of thyroid secretion, a pro-hormone that must be activated by deiodination to 3,5,3Ј-triiodothyronine (T 3 ) by either type 1 or 2 iodothyronine deiodinases (D1 or D2) in order to initiate thyroid action. To balance the activation pathway, both T 4 and T 3 are irreversibly inactivated by monodeiodination of the tyrosyl ring of the iodothyronines, a reaction catalyzed by the type 3 iodothyronine deiodinase (D3). These three enzymes constitute a family of selenocysteine (Sec)-containing integral membrane oxidoreductases (1).Changes in the activity of D3 modulate both global and local tissue thyroid status. In the global sense, D3 expression is increased by T 3 and reduced in hypothyroidism or iodine deficiency, thus accelerating or retarding T 3 inactivation to maintain homeostasis (2-4) or to alter plasma T 3 concentrations such as occurs during tadpole metamorphosis or during fetal life (5-7). More complex are the alterations in D3 activity in specific tissues dictated by developmental programs that permit precisely timed changes in their differentiation. For example, during metamorphosis in Xenopus laevis tadpoles, the eyes must shift from a lateral to a more rostral and dorsal location to permit overlapping visual fields. Retinal cells follow this shift with an asymmetrical growth, a process that is thyroid hormone-dependent. To develop asymmetrically, however, a subset of dorsal cells must grow at a slower rate....

Open reading frame expressed sequences tags (ORESTES) differ from conventional ESTs by providing sequence data from the central protein coding portion of transcripts. We generated a total of 696,745 ORESTES sequences from 24 human tissues and used a subset of the data that correspond to a set of 15,095 full-length mRNAs as a means of assessing the efficiency of the strategy and its potential contribution to the definition of the human transcriptome. We estimate that ORESTES sampled over 80% of all highly and moderately expressed, and between 40% and 50% of rarely expressed, human genes. In our most thoroughly sequenced tissue, the breast, the 130,000 ORESTES generated are derived from transcripts from an estimated 70% of all genes expressed in that tissue, with an equally efficient representation of both highly and poorly expressed genes. In this respect, we find that the capacity of the ORESTES strategy both for gene discovery and shotgun transcript sequence generation significantly exceeds that of conventional ESTs. The distribution of ORESTES is such that many human transcripts are now represented by a scaffold of partial sequences distributed along the length of each gene product. The experimental joining of the scaffold components, by reverse transcription–PCR, represents a direct route to transcript finishing that may represent a useful alternative to full-length cDNA cloning.