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Background: The secretory properties of brown adipose tissue are thought to contribute to the association between active brown fat and a healthy metabolic status. Although a few brown adipokines have been identified, a comprehensive knowledge of the brown adipose tissue secretome is lacking.

Methods: Here, to examine the effects of thermogenic activation of brown adipocytes on protein secretion, we used isobaric tags for relative and absolute quantification (iTRAQ) analysis to determine how the secreted proteome of brown adipocytes (that detected in cell culture medium) differed in response to cAMP.

Results: Our results indicated that 56 secreted proteins were up-regulated in response to cAMP. Of them, nearly half (29) corresponded to extracellular matrix components and regulators. Several previously known adipokines, were also detected. Unexpectedly, we also found five components of the complement system. Only 15 secreted proteins were down-regulated by cAMP; of them three were ECM-related and none was related to the complement system. We observed a partial concordance between the cAMP-regulated release of proteins (both from proteomics and from antibody-based quantification of specific proteins) and the cAMP-mediated regulation of their encoding transcript for the up-regulated secreted proteins. However, a stronger concordance was seen for the down-regulated secreted proteins.

Conclusions: The present results highlight the need to investigate previously unrecognized processes such as the role of extracellular matrix in thermogenic activation-triggered brown fat remodeling, as well as the intriguing question of …