How adiponectin fights diabetes

Abstract

Signal Transduction Adiponectin, a hormone produced in adipose tissue, may provide a useful therapeutic lead for type 2 diabetes because it improves glucose homeostasis and tissue sensitivity to insulin. But how it does so is unclear. Li et al. show that in mice with insulin resistance caused by a high-fat diet, treatment with adiponectin reduced the amount of triglyceride in the liver and in skeletal muscle. It did so by increasing lipoprotein lipase activity and triglyceride uptake into epididymal white adipose tissue and increasing fatty acid oxidation in muscle. These effects decreased the amount of diacylglycerol in the plasma membrane of liver and muscle cells, thus decreasing the activity of protein kinase C family members that impair signaling by the insulin receptor. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 117 , 32584 (2020).