Date

April 18, 2026

Source

Nature

Categories

White adipose atrophy exacerbates cold stress and accelerates aging in male mice

Data availability

The data generated in this study, including uncropped blot scans, are provided in the Source Data files. Source data are provided with this paper. No custom code was used in this study. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 32430048, 82125012, and 82488301 to B.L., 32090033, 82071578, and 82360282 to Z.L.), the Shenzhen Medical Research Fund (C2406001), the National Key R&D Program of China (2024YFA0918700, 2023YFC2509900, 2021ZD0202400 to B.L.), the Guangdong Basic and Applied Research Foundation (2025A1515010719 to W.S.), the Shenzhen Science and Technology Talent Project (RCYX2023121109012703 to W.S.), the Shenzhen Municipal Commission of Science and Technology Innovation (JCYJ20220818100016035 and JCYJ20220818100009020 to B.L.), the Shenzhen University 2035 Program of Excellent Research (0000214 to W.S.), and the Shenzhen University Medicine Plus Program (2024YG017 to W.S.). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Authors are grateful to Dr. Jessica Tamanini (Shenzhen University and ETediting) for editing the manuscript prior to submission.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Zuojun Liu, Wenjing Hu, Xiaoqing Tan, Shimin Sun.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shenzhen Key Laboratory for Systemic Aging and Intervention (SKL-SAI), Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Genome Stability and Disease Prevention, Marshall Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering, International Cancer Center, National Health Commission Key Laboratory of Bone Aging, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Shenzhen University Medical School, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Zuojun Liu, Wenjing Hu, Xiaoqing Tan, Shimin Sun, Minxian Qian, Xiaolong Tang & Baohua Liu

  2. Department of Environmental Health, Hainan Province Key Laboratory of One Health, Collaborative Innovation Center of Life and Health, Hainan University, Haikou, 570228, China

    Zuojun Liu

  3. Anti-aging & Regenerative Medicine Research Institute, School of Life Sciences and Medicine, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo, 255000, China

    Wenjing Hu, Weiwei Wu & Qiuxiang Pang

  4. Institute of Molecular Cell Biology, Center for Molecular Biomedicine, Jena University, Jena, Germany

    Wenjing Hu & Shimin Sun

  5. Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine, Department of Pathology and Pathophysiology School of Basic Medical Sciences, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Xin Huang, Nan Zhao, Zimei Wang & Wen Su

  6. School of Basic Medical Sciences, Wannan Medical University, Wuhu, 241002, China

    Yuan Meng & Ming Wang

Authors

  1. Zuojun Liu
  2. Wenjing Hu
  3. Xiaoqing Tan
  4. Shimin Sun
  5. Xin Huang
  6. Yuan Meng
  7. Nan Zhao
  8. Ming Wang
  9. Weiwei Wu
  10. Minxian Qian
  11. Xiaolong Tang
  12. Qiuxiang Pang
  13. Zimei Wang
  14. Wen Su
  15. Baohua Liu

Contributions

B.L., Z.L., and W.S. conceived the project and designed the experiments. W.H., X.T., and S.S. performed most of the experiments. X.H., Y.M., and N.Z. helped in the animal experiments. M.W., W.W., M.Q., X.Tang, Q.P., and Z.W. provided technical support and discussed some results. Z.L., W.S., and B.L. wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Wen Su or Baohua Liu.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Communications thanks the anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. [A peer review file is available].

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Liu, Z., Hu, W., Tan, X. et al. White adipose atrophy exacerbates cold stress and accelerates aging in male mice. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71857-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-71857-3