Wagner Marek
Department of Biomedicine, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
Yale J Biol Med. 2014 Jun 6;87(2):127-33. eCollection 2014 Jun.
High-mobility group box 1 (HMGB1) protein first made headlines 40 years ago as a non-histone nuclear protein that regulates gene expression. Not so long ago, it was also shown that HMGB1 has an additional surprising function. When released into the extracellular milieu, HMGB1 triggers an inflammatory response by serving as an endogenous danger signal. The pro-inflammatory role of HMGB1 is now well-established and has been associated with several diseases, including sepsis, rheumatoid arthritis, and atherosclerosis. Yet very little is known about its role in obesity, wherein adipose tissue is typified by a persistent, smoldering inflammatory response instigated by high macrophage infiltrate that potentiates the risk of obesity-associated comorbidities. This mini-review focuses on the putative causal relationship between HMGB1 and macrophage pro-inflammatory activation in pathologically altered adipose tissue associated with obesity.
高迁移率族蛋白B1（HMGB1）作为一种调节基因表达的非组蛋白核蛋白，早在40年前就首次成为头条新闻。不久前，还发现HMGB1具有另一个惊人的功能。当释放到细胞外环境中时，HMGB1作为一种内源性危险信号引发炎症反应。HMGB1的促炎作用现已得到充分证实，并与多种疾病相关，包括败血症、类风湿性关节炎和动脉粥样硬化。然而，人们对其在肥胖症中的作用知之甚少，在肥胖症中，脂肪组织的典型特征是由高巨噬细胞浸润引发的持续的、隐匿的炎症反应，这增加了肥胖相关合并症的风险。本综述聚焦于肥胖相关的病理改变脂肪组织中HMGB1与巨噬细胞促炎激活之间的假定因果关系。
