White, brown and pink adipocytes: the extraordinary 1 plasticity of the adipose organ. 2 Antonio Giordano 1 , Arianna Smorlesi 1 , Andrea Frontini 1 , Giorgio Barbatelli 1 and 3 Saverio Cinti 1,2 4 1 Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine, Section of Neuroscience and Cell Biology, 5 Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy 6 2 Center of Obesity, Università Politecnica delle Marche-United Hospitals, Ancona, Italy 7 8 9 10 Short title: Extraordinary plasticity of the adipose organ 11 12 13 Corresponding Author: Saverio Cinti, MD 14 Department of Experimental and Clinical Medicine 15 University of Ancona 16 Via Tronto, 10/A 17 60020 Ancona 18 Italy 19 20 Phone (39).071.220.6089 21 Fax (39).071.220.6087 22 Email s.cinti@univpm.it 23 24 Page 1 of 39 Accepted Preprint first posted on 27 January 2014 as Manuscript EJE-13-0945 Copyright © 2014 European Society of Endocrinology.