Abstract
Adipose tissue is an ‘endocrine organ’ that influences diverse physiological and pathological processes via adipokines secretion. Strong evidences suggest that epicardial and perivascular adipose tissue can directly regulate heart and vessels’ structure and function. Indeed, in obesity there is a shift toward the secretion of adipokines that promote a pro-inflammatory status and contribute to obesity cardiomyopathy. The prospect of modulating adipokines and/or their receptors represents an attractive perspective to the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. In this paper, we described the most important actions of certain adipokines and their receptors that are capable of influencing cardiovascular physiology as well as their possible use as therapeutic targets.
Acknowledgement
We are very thankful to AF Silva, DM Gonçalves and PP Silva for their support in writing this article.
Financial & competing interests disclosure
This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology Grants PEst-C/SAU/UI0051/2014, PTDC/BIM-MEC/0998/2012 and EXCL/BIM-MEC/0055/2012 through the Cardiovascular R&D Unit, by European Commission Grant FP7-Health-2010, MEDIA-261409 and by the Universidade do Porto/Santander Totta (Projectos pluridisciplinares IJUP 2011). N Gonçalves is supported by a grant from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (SFRH/BD/66628/2009). The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.
No writing assistance was utilized inthe production of this manuscript.