Adipocytes, once considered simple lipid-storing cells, are rapidly emerging as complex cells with many biologically diverse functions. A powerful high-throughput method for analyzing single cells is flow cytometry. Several groups have attempted to analyze and sort freshly isolated adipocytes; however, using an adipocyte-specific reporter mouse, we demonstrate that these studies fail to detect the majority of white adipocytes. We define critical settings required for adipocyte flow cytometry and provide a rigid strategy for analyzing and sorting white and brown adipocyte populations. The applicability of our protocol is shown by sorting mouse adipocytes based on size or UCP1 expression and demonstrating that a subset of human adipocytes lacks the β₂-adrenergic receptor, particularly in the insulin-resistant state. In conclusion, the present study confers key technological insights for analyzing and sorting mature adipocytes, opening up numerous downstream research applications.

中文翻译：

---

小鼠和人类脂肪细胞的流式细胞仪，用于分析褐变和细胞异质性。

曾经被认为是简单的储脂细胞的脂肪细胞正在迅速发展为具有许多生物学上多种功能的复杂细胞。流式细胞仪是分析单细胞的一种强大的高通量方法。几个小组已经尝试分析和分类新鲜分离的脂肪细胞。但是，使用脂肪细胞特异性的报告基因小鼠，我们证明了这些研究未能检测出大多数白色脂肪细胞。我们定义了脂肪细胞流式细胞仪所需的关键设置，并为分析和分类白色和棕色脂肪细胞群体提供了一种严格的策略。我们的协议的适用性是由排序基于大小或UCP1表达和证明小鼠脂肪细胞，人类脂肪细胞的子集缺乏β所示₂-肾上腺素能受体，特别是在胰岛素抵抗状态。总之，本研究为分析和分类成熟的脂肪细胞提供了关键的技术见解，从而打开了许多下游研究应用程序。