Document Type

Article

Original Publication Date

2013

Journal/Book/Conference Title

PLOS ONE

Volume

8

DOI of Original Publication

10.1371/journal.pone.0055084

Comments

Originally Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055084

Date of Submission

November 2014

Abstract

Metabolic syndrome is associated with visceral obesity, insulin resistance and an increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. Visceral fat tissue primarily consists of adipocytes that secrete cytokines leading to a state of systemic inflammation in obese conditions. One of the IGF-independent functions of IGFBP-3 is its role as an anti-inflammatory molecule. Our study in obese adolescents show a decrease in total IGFBP-3 levels and increase in proteolyzed IGFBP-3 in circulation when compared to their normal counterparts and establishes a positive correlation between IGFBP-3 proteolysis and adiposity parameters as well as insulin resistance. In human adipocytes, we show that IGFBP-3 inhibits TNF-α-induced NF-κB activity in an IGF-independent manner, thereby restoring the deregulated insulin signaling and negating TNF-α-induced inhibition of glucose uptake. IGFBP-3 further inhibits TNF-α, CRP and high glucose-induced NF-κB activity in human aortic endothelial cells (HAECs) and subsequently suppresses monocyte adhesion to HAEC through the IGFBP-3 receptor. In conclusion, these findings suggest that reduced levels of IGFBP-3 in circulation and reduced expression of IGFBP-3 in macrophages in obesity may result in suppression of its anti-inflammatory functions and therefore IGFBP-3 may present itself as a therapeutic for obesity-induced insulin resistance and for events occurring in the early stages of atherosclerosis.

Rights

Copyright: © 2013 Mohanraj et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Is Part Of

VCU Pathology Publications

Included in

Pathology Commons

Share

COinS