Exploring the relationship of brown adipose tissue
to bone microarchitecture using 7T MRI and micro-CT
Ping Zhang1, Baohai Yu1, Shuying Shao1, Ranxu Zhang1, Yan Zeng1, Jujia Li1, Congcong Ren1, Xiaoyue Zhou2 and Jian Zhao1
1Department of Radiology, The Third Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Hebei Province Biomechanical
Key Laboratory of Orthopedics, Shijiazhuang, Hebei and 2Siemens Healthineers Ltd., Shanghai, China
Corresponding Author: Jian Zhao, Department of Radiology, The Third Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Hebei Province Biomechanical Key Laboratory of Orthopedics, Shijiazhuang, Hebei, China. e-mail: zhaojiansohu@126.com
Summary. Background. Brown adipose tissue (BAT) is involved both in energy production and bone metabolism. The purpose of this study was to analyze the relationship between BAT and microarchitecture at cancellous and cortical bone using Kunming mice and the methods of 7T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) combined with micro-CT.
Methods. Twenty-four female Kunming mice were examined by 7T MRI and measured T2* relaxation time on the deep and superficial interscapular BAT (iBAT) and subcutaneous white adipose tissue (sWAT). Cancellous bone microarchitecture of the distal femur and cortical bone of the middle femur were examined by micro-CT. A paired t-test was used to analyze the differences in T2* values between iBAT and sWAT. The correlation between BAT T2* values and bone microstructure parameters were analyzed using Pearson’s correlation.
Results. T2* values of the deep and superficial iBAT (6.36±3.31 ms and 6.23±2.61 ms) were significantly shorter than those of sWAT (16.30±3.05 ms, tdeep iBAT=-10.816), tsuperficial iBAT=-12.276, p<0.01). Deep iBAT T2* values were significantly and negatively correlated with bone volume, cancellous thickness, and bone thickness (Th) and trabecular thickness (Tb.Th) of the cancellous bone of femur. Deep iBAT T2* values were significantly and positively correlated with the structural model index of cancellous bone of femur. Deep iBAT T2* values were significantly and negatively correlated with bone mineral density of the cortical bone of femur.
Conclusions. MRI can distinguish the two adipose tissues from each other. T2* values of BAT were lower than WAT on MRI. BAT related bone remodeling was more correlated with the microstructure of cancellous bone than that of cortical bone. Histol Histopathol 37, 1085-1090 (2022)
Key words: Brown adipose tissue, White adipose tissue, Magnetic resonance imaging, Micro-CT, T2* value, Bone microstructure
DOI: 10.14670/HH-18-481
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©The Author(s) 2022. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY International License. |
