PNPLA3-I148M: a problem of plenty in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

ABSTRACT

Fatty liver disease (FLD) affects more than one-third of the population in the western world and an increasing number of children in the United States. It is a leading cause of obesity and liver transplantation. Mechanistic insights into the causes of FLD are urgently needed since no therapeutic intervention has proven to be effective. A sequence variation in patatin like phospholipase domain-containing protein 3 (PNPLA3), rs 738409, is strongly associated with the progression of fatty liver disease. The resulting mutant causes a substitution of isoleucine to methionine at position 148. The underlying mechanism of this disease remains unsolved although several studies have illuminated key insights into its pathogenesis. This review highlights the progress in our understanding of PNPLA3 function in lipid droplet dynamics and explores possible therapeutic interventions to ameliorate this human health hazard.

KEYWORDS:

• Fatty liver disease
• lipid droplet
• PNPLA3
• proteasome
• autophagy

Acknowledgments

Soumik BasuRay was supported by a Junior Faculty Research Award (Basic Science) from the National Lipid Association, The United States of America.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Lipid Association, The United States of America.