Exploring regulatory network of metabolism through liver research.

In recent years, the techniques in molecular biology have been dramatically advanced, and consequently the landscape of metabolism research has undergone a remarkable change. One of the emerging pictures as the fruits of these advancements is one depicting the regulation of systemic metabolism through inter-organ networks involving multiple tissues, either via humoral factors, which are secreted from one tissue and conveyed to their remote target tissues, or through neuronal networks which are integrated by the central nervous system. In addition, the progress in high-throughput research tools enabled detailed characterization and deeper understanding of the nature of human genome, which has attracted much attention to the importance of various non-coding RNAs species. These non-coding RNAs are often co-expressed and co-regulated with adjacent protein coding genes, adding higher levels of complexities by them functioning together as a system and often influencing biologically important pathways in a cooperative manner. Here in this review several examples of these regulatory network systems are presented, illustrating the significance of them in systemic metabolism, with a possible future research direction also being proposed.