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Role of Adipocytokine in Metabolic SyndromeIichiro Shimomura, M.D., Ph.D.Department of Medicine and Pathophysiology, Graduate School of Frontier Bioscience, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University. The adipose tissue produces and secretes many bioactive substances, which we conceptualized as Adipocytokine. Adiponectin is an adipocytokine identified by screening the adipose-specific genes in human fat. Adiponectin mRNA is expressed exclusively in adipose tissues. The adiponectin mRNAs and its plasma levels are reduced in obesity, type 2 diabetes and atherosclerosis. Adiponectin exhibited the anti-diabetic effects targeting to skeletal muscle and anti-atherogenic moieties functioning on various vascular cells. Therefore, hypoadiponectinemia stands at upstream of metabolic syndrome, hence, become a direct target of the drug intervention to tackle the life style-related disease. Visfatin is a new adipocytokine identified as gene expressed more abundantly in the human visceral fat than subcutaneous fat. In KKAy mice, the mRNA was increased markedly in visceral fat, with the increased concentration of the protein in plasma. In human, its plasma levels showed strong correlation with the accumulation of visceral fat. As the function, the recombinant protein accumulated triglyceride in adipocytes, at the similar strength to the effect of insulin. We conclude that Vistafatin is another adipocytokine, which production is augmented in the accumulated visceral fat, and which aggravates the triglyceride accumulation in the adipose tissue of whole body. [Jpn J Physiol 54 Suppl:S8 (2004)]
