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GPR120: a critical role in adipogenesis, inflammation, and energy metabolism in adipose tissue

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Abstract

It is well known that adipose tissue has a critical role in the development of obesity and metabolic diseases and that adipose tissue acts as an endocrine organ to regulate lipid and glucose metabolism. Accumulating in the adipose tissue, fatty acids serve as a primary source of essential nutrients and act on intracellular and cell surface receptors to regulate biological events. G protein-coupled receptor 120 (GPR120) represents a promising target for the treatment of obesity-related metabolic disorders for its involvement in the regulation of adipogenesis, inflammation, glucose uptake, and insulin resistance. In this review, we summarize recent studies and advances regarding the systemic role of GPR120 in adipose tissue, including both white and brown adipocytes. We offer a new perspective by comparing the different roles in a variety of homeostatic processes from adipogenic development to adipocyte metabolism, and we also discuss the effects of natural and synthetic agonists that may be potential agents for the treatment of metabolic diseases.

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Acknowledgements

We apologize to those authors whose excellent work we could not reference directly in this review due to limited text space. This study was jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 31472075 and 31402085); Hubei Provincial Creative Team Project of Agricultural Science and Technology (No. 2007-620); the Key Technology Research and Development Program of Hubei Province (Nos. 2014ABB014 and 2014ABC012).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Animal Nutrition and Feed Science, College of Animal Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Tongxing Song, Yang Yang, Yuanfei Zhou, Hongkui Wei & Jian Peng

  2. The Cooperative Innovation Center for Sustainable Pig Production, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Tongxing Song, Yang Yang, Yuanfei Zhou, Hongkui Wei & Jian Peng

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  1. Tongxing Song
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  2. Yang Yang
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  3. Yuanfei Zhou
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  4. Hongkui Wei
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Correspondence to Hongkui Wei or Jian Peng.

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Song, T., Yang, Y., Zhou, Y. et al. GPR120: a critical role in adipogenesis, inflammation, and energy metabolism in adipose tissue. Cell. Mol. Life Sci. 74, 2723–2733 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00018-017-2492-2

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