Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPAR gamma) plays an important role in the control of energy balance and lipid and glucose homeostasis. Different transcript variants were investigated not only in human but also in other vertebrates. To look into the evolutionary changes of these variants, we analyzed the genomic sequences of PPAR gamma genes from several vertebrate species, as...

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPAR-gamma) belongs to the nuclear hormone receptor subfamily of transcription factors. PPARs are expressed in key target tissues such as liver, fat, and muscle and thus they play a major role in the regulation of energy balance. Because of PPAR-gamma's role in energy balance, signals originating from the gut (e.g., GIP), fat (e.g., leptin), mus...

The nuclear hormone receptor, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)-gamma, originally identified as a key mediator of adipogenesis, is expressed widely and implicated in diverse biological responses. Both natural and synthetic agonists of PPAR-gamma abrogated the stimulation of collagen synthesis and myofibroblast differentiation induced by transforming growth factor (TGF)-beta in v...

MBX-102/JNJ39659100 (MBX-102) is in clinical development as an oral glucose-lowering agent for the treatment of type 2 diabetes. MBX-102 is a nonthiazolidinedione (TZD) selective partial agonist of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR)-gamma that is differentiated from the TZDs structurally, mechanistically, preclinically and clinically. In diabetic rodent models, MBX-102 has insuli...

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma (PPAR-gamma) agonists not only improve metabolic abnormalities of diabetes and consequent diabetic nephropathy, but they also protect against nondiabetic chronic kidney disease in experimental models. Here, we found that the PPAR-gamma agonist pioglitazone protected against renal injury in aging; it reduced proteinuria, improved GFR, decreased sc...

In both colon cancer and type 2 diabetes, metabolic changes induced by upregulation of the Wnt/beta-catenin signaling and downregulation of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPAR gamma) may help account for the frequent association of these two diseases. In both diseases, PPAR gamma is downregulated while the canonical Wnt/beta-catenin pathway is upregulated. In colon cancer, up...

Peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) are nuclear receptors that heterodimerize with the retinoid X receptor and then modulate the function of many target genes. Three PPARs are known: alpha, beta/delta, and gamma. The better known are PPAR-alpha and PPAR-gamma, which may be activated by different synthetic agonists, although the endogenous ligands are unknown. PPAR-alpha is invol...

We have shown that membrane sphingomyelin (SM) is an independent predictor of the variance of fasting plasma insulin (FPI) concentrations and the homeostasis model assessment (HOMA) estimate of insulin resistance in obese women. The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma (PPAR-gamma) is a key component in adipocyte differentiation that may also contribute to the sensitivity of cells t...

Peroxisome proliferators-activated receptors (PPARs) are ligand-activated transcription factors that belong to the nuclear hormone receptor superfamily. The three PPAR isoforms (alpha, gamma and beta/delta) have been found to play a pleiotropic role in cell fat metabolism. Furthermore, in recent years, evidence has been found regarding the antiproliferative, proapoptotic, and differentiation-pr...