The ability to regulate body temperature diminishes with age in both humans and rodents. To investigate whether attenuation of sympathetically activated thermogenesis in brown adipose tissue (BAT) may account for the loss of thermoregulation with age, we assessed O2 consumption and body temperature in response to norepinephrine and the specific BAT beta-adrenergic agonist CGP-12177A in 6-, 18-, and 24-mo-old rats. In addition, the effects of this agonist on interscapular BAT mitochondrial GDP binding in young and senescent rats were determined. CGP-12177A rapidly induced an elevation in O2 consumption, which peaked at 25 min, followed by a decline over 4 h. The peak increase in O2 consumption over baseline and the cumulative 4-h response were decreased with age [P < 0.02, analysis of variance (ANOVA)]. CGP-12177A induced an increase in body temperature that paralleled but appropriately lagged behind the increase in O2 consumption and that was decreased with age (P < 0.02, ANOVA). The norepinephrine-induced increase in O2 consumption was also reduced with age but was not paralleled by a change in body temperature and was associated with a four- to fivefold increase in physical activity. In young rats CGP-12177A increased the number of available BAT mitochondrial GDP binding sites at 20 and 60 min postinjection, but in senescent rats CGP-12177A was unable to increase GDP binding. These data indicate that CGP-12177A is a novel agonist for BAT thermogenesis. With age there is a reduced capacity for thermogenesis that involves a failure to increase GDP binding, either due to a diminished amount of uncoupling protein with age or a failure to unmask reserve GDP binding sites.
