The weight of leptin in immunity

Nat Rev Immunol. 2004 May;4(5):371-9. doi: 10.1038/nri1350.

Antonio La Cava ¹, Giuseppe Matarese

Affiliations

Affiliation

1 Autoimmunity and Tolerance Laboratory, Department of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles, 1000 Veteran Avenue 32-59, Los Angeles, California 90095-1670, USA. [email protected]

Abstract

Leptin is an adipocyte-derived hormone/cytokine that links nutritional status with neuroendocrine and immune functions. As a hormone, Leptin regulates food intake and basal metabolism, and is sexually dimorphic - that is, its serum concentration is higher in females than in males with a similar body fat mass. As a cytokine, Leptin can affect thymic homeostasis and the secretion of acute-phase reactants such as interleukin-1 and tumour-necrosis factor. Similar to other pro-inflammatory cytokines, Leptin promotes T helper 1 (TH1)-cell differentiation and can modulate the onset and progression of autoimmune responses in several animal models of disease. Here, we review the advances and controversy for a role of Leptin in the pathophysiology of immune responses.

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