Emerging nonmetabolic functions of skin fat

Dermal white adipose tissue (dWAT) is a specialized adipose depot of the skin with activities that are closely linked with those of hair follicles.The development and remodelling of dWAT relies largely on paracrine signals generated by growing hair follicles.Dermal adipocytes cyclically grow and shrink their lipid droplets in response to hair-derived signals and systemic factors, such as cold stress, can override this cycle.Dermal adipocytes and their progenitors actively signal to neighbouring skin cell types, including hair follicle cells, and become important modulators of their growth activities.Dermal adipogenesis is activated in response to bacterial skin infection, activates antimicrobial peptide secretion and serves an innate immune defence function.