Abstract
Obesity is now recognized as a rapidly increasing worldwide threat to health, largely as a result of causing diabetes. Thus, considerable efforts are underway in the pharmaceutical industry to find drugs to treat this condition. Target validation in various academic and industrial laboratories has revealed a number of potential molecular targets in fat cells or adipocytes. By definition, obesity is too much fat, and we here review efforts to treat obesity and, by proxy, diabetes by modulating the metabolic state of adipocytes.
Footnotes
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ABBREVIATIONS: FA, fatty acid; PPARγ, peroxisome proliferation activating receptor γ; RBP4, retinol binding protein 4; GW501516, (2-methyl-4-(((4-methyl-2-(4-(trifluoromethyl)phenyl)-5-thiazolyl)methyl)thio)phenoxy)-acetic acid; SCD1, stearoyl-CoA desaturase-1; DGAT1, acyl CoA:diacylglycerol acyltransferase 1; 11β-HSD1, 11β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 1; PTP-1B, protein tyrosine phosphatase-1B.
- Received April 27, 2006.
- Accepted June 6, 2006.
- The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
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