Rho激酶与脂肪细胞分化的研究进展

Rho-associated kinase and Adipogenesis

白色脂肪组织的过度沉积与肥胖症、II型糖尿病和脂肪肝等疾病的发生密切相关,已有的研究发现,体外培养的间充质干细胞在被诱导向脂肪细胞分化的过程中,细胞形态会由最初的长梭形逐渐变圆,最终形成胞内充满一个巨大脂滴的圆形细胞。Rho激酶是参与细胞运动的主要激酶之一,在调控细胞生长、胞质分裂、细胞迁移、转化和侵袭等方面发挥着重要的作用,近年来已逐渐成为新药研发的重要靶点之一。最近的研究显示Rho激酶间接影响不同转录因子表达,从而影响细胞的分化命运,且Rho激酶与胚胎干细胞的成脂分化有紧密联系。本文就Rho激酶与脂肪细胞分化的相关研究进展做一综述。

Obesity has increased at an alarming rate in recent years and is now a worldwide public health problem. There have been many reports on morphological changes of cultured mesenchymal stem cells( MSCs) which grew in monolayers, showing a swirled growth pattern for growth cultures. Then they were filled with lipid droplets which increased in number; a typical phenotype of adipocytic cells displayed characteristics of lipid droplets filling the whole cytoplasm of single cells. Rho-kinase( Rho associated coil containing protein kinase, ROCK) is one of the main kinases involved in the regulation of actin cytoskeleton and cell movement. In recent years it has gradually become one of the important targets for new drug research. The metabolic function of Rho-kinase has been the subject of a great deal of investigation in metabolic diseases. It appears that inhibition of ROCK activity is beneficial for the treatment of a wide range of cardiovascular diseases. However, recent studies with genetic models of ROCK demonstrate that ROCK plays a positive role in anti-obesity. Here we discussed the newly identified functions of ROCK in regulating adipogenesis.