Anti-inflammatory angle in obesity
An international team has discovered a Wnt signaling pathway in white adipose tissue that could be manipulated to short-circuit obesity-associated inflammation and thus potentially prevent metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes.1 The findings may open a new therapeutic area for the fewdrug developers inthe Wnt space if it can be targeted without triggering side effects in other tissues.
Although the Wnt pathway has been studied mostextensively in embryonic development and cancer, a role for the pathway in adipose tissue has been hinted at in previous studies.2 The new study now identifies a mechanism by which an adipocyte-derived protein called secreted frizzled-related protein 5 (SFRP5) blocks the activity of a proinflammatory Wnt pathway activator known as wingless-type MMTV integration site family member 5A (WNT5A)...