Description
Adiponectin is one of cytokines secreted from adipocyte (adipocytokines, adipokines), and controls lipid metabolism and insulin sensitivity. Adiponectin is an important substance showing anti-diabetic, anti-atherosclerotic, and anti-inflammatory actions. In blood, adiponectin monomer molecules are associated to form trimer, hexamer or 12-18-mers. The monomer form of adiponectin is found only in adipocytes, and homomultimer, i.e. trimer, hexamer and 12-18-mers formed from adiponectin monomer are found in plasma.Trimer (low molecular weight complexes/LMW) is formed by interaction of non-covalent bonds of triple helix area and by hydrophobic interaction between globular Cq1 domain, and hexamer (middle molecular weight complexes/MMW) or larger complexes (higher molecular weight/HMW) are formed through disulfide bonds between cysteines at 39 of LMW-complexes.
Adiponectin is believed to influence on cell growth, angiogenesis, and tissue remodeling by isolating various growth factors through binding with distinct affinity. The affinity is dependent upon the type of complexes, LMW, MMW and HMW.
The blood levels of HMW were reported to reflect BMI, sex, effect of body weight decrease, glucose tolerance, liver insulin sensitivity, metabolic syndrome or DM2 more than total adiponectin levels. This means that assay for HMW is expected to be more useful for analysis of metabolic syndrome and DM2. CD Mouse/Rat HMW Adiponectin ELISA Kit is specific to HMW