Minireview: Lipid Metabolism, Metabolic Diseases, and Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptors

Lipid and carbohydrate homeostasis in higher organisms is under the control of an integrated system that has the capacity to rapidly respond to metabolic changes. The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPARs) are nuclear fatty acid receptors that have been implicated to play an important role in obesity-related metabolic diseases such as hyperlipidemia, insulin resistance, and coronary artery disease. The three PPAR subtypes, alpha, gamma, and delta, have distinct expression patterns and evolved to sense components of different lipoproteins and regulate lipid homeostasis based on the need of a specific tissue. Recent advances in identifying selective ligands in conjunction with microarray analyses…

• HH
  Howard Hughes Medical Institute
• MO
  March of Dimes Foundation
• UO
  University of California, San Diego