Nature's latest achievement: IL-27, a new target for immunotherapy for obesity

Article source: Medical Rubik's Cube Pro

On November 24, the international academic journal Nature published the research paper "IL-27 signaling promotes adipocyte thermogenesis and energy expenditure" by Professor Yin Zhinan's team from Jinan University online

This study found for the first time the protective effect of IL-27 signaling pathway in metabolic diseases, and for the first time proved that IL-27 receptor (IL-27Ra, or WSX-1) is expressed on non-immune cells-adipocytes And play an important function

This discovery changes the existing understanding of the function of IL-27.

The metabolic syndrome caused by obesity, such as type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver, and atherosclerosis, has become a major public health challenge

In order to explore the functions of cytokines in obesity and related metabolic syndromes, the researchers first systematically detected the expression of cytokines in the peripheral serum of obese people and healthy people, and found that compared with normal people, the IL- in the peripheral blood of obese people 27 The expression level was significantly down-regulated

Figure 1.

The test results of the overall metabolic level of mice show that IL-27 signal mediates energy expenditure by affecting the heat production of fat cells

Figure 2.

Does IL-27 have an obesity treatment effect? After injecting recombinant IL-27 into obese mice, the researchers found that the body weight and fat weight of the mice in the IL-27 injection group decreased significantly, and the insulin signal sensitivity increased significantly, proving that IL-27 can effectively treat obesity and obesity caused by Insulin resistance

Model diagram: IL-27 secreted by CX3CR1+ cells acts on the IL-27 receptor on adipocytes, up-regulates P38MAPK, induces UCP1 protein expression, promotes heat production, consumes energy, reduces body weight, and improves insulin resistance

Note: The original text has been deleted

Reference materials:

[1] Qian Wang et al.