- Hasegawa, Yutaka;
- Ikeda, Kenji;
- Chen, Yong;
- Alba, Diana L;
- Stifler, Daniel;
- Shinoda, Kosaku;
- Hosono, Takashi;
- Maretich, Pema;
- Yang, Yangyu;
- Ishigaki, Yasushi;
- Chi, Jingyi;
- Cohen, Paul;
- Koliwad, Suneil K;
- Kajimura, Shingo
Adipose tissue fibrosis is a hallmark of malfunction that is linked to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes; however, what regulates this process remains unclear. Here we show that the PRDM16 transcriptional complex, a dominant activator of brown/beige adipocyte development, potently represses adipose tissue fibrosis in an uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1)-independent manner. By purifying the PRDM16 complex, we identified GTF2IRD1, a member of the TFII-I family of DNA-binding proteins, as a cold-inducible transcription factor that mediates the repressive action of the PRDM16 complex on fibrosis. Adipocyte-selective expression of GTF2IRD1 represses adipose tissue fibrosis and improves systemic glucose homeostasis independent of body-weight loss, while deleting GTF2IRD1 promotes fibrosis in a cell-autonomous manner. GTF2IRD1 represses the transcription of transforming growth factor β-dependent pro-fibrosis genes by recruiting PRDM16 and EHMT1 onto their promoter/enhancer regions. These results suggest a mechanism by which repression of obesity-associated adipose tissue fibrosis through the PRDM16 complex leads to an improvement in systemic glucose homeostasis.