Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Technical Report
  • Published:

Novel adipokines: methodological utility in human obesity research

International Journal of Obesity volume 41, pages 976–981 (2017)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Background:

Adipokines could pose a link between adiposity, systemic inflammation and metabolic disease risk. However, it is unclear whether representative biomarkers are methodologically suitable for use in human obesity research.

Methods:

We assessed the intra-individual reproducibility of selected adipokines in a sample of 207, apparently healthy, participants with available biosample collections over a 4-month period. Concentrations of the following adipokines were measured at each sampling time point: fatty-acid binding protein-4 (FABP-4), lipocalin-2, monocyte chemoattractant protein 1 (MCP-1), procalcitonin, progranulin, vaspin and visfatin/Nampt. We calculated intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) and examined Bland−Altman plots.

Results:

The analyses suggested an overall good to excellent biomarker reproducibility over 4 months: FABP-4: ICC=0.73 (95% confidence interval: 0.65, 0.78), lipocalin-2: 0.64 (0.55, 0.71), MCP-1: 0.85 (0.81; 0.89), procalcitonin: 0.78 (0.72, 0.83), progranulin: 0.59 (0.50, 0.68) and vaspin: 0.86 (0.82, 0.89). A good agreement of the repeated measurements was further supported by the Bland−Altman plots. No substantial differences in biomarker performance according to adiposity status could be observed. Reliability of visfatin/Nampt could not be assessed due to a high number of measurements below the lower limit of detection.

Conclusion:

Results suggest that single measurements of the evaluated adipokines could be used in population-based studies aimed to assess links between obesity, inflammation and metabolic diseases.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Collaboration NCDRF, Di Cesare M, Bentham J, Stevens GA, Zhou B, Danaei G et al. Trends in adult body-mass index in 200 countries from 1975 to 2014: a pooled analysis of 1698 population-based measurement studies with 19.2 million participants. Lancet 2016; 387: 1377–1396.

  2. Berrington de Gonzalez A, Hartge P, Cerhan JR, Flint AJ, Hannan L, MacInnis RJ et al. Body-mass index and mortality among 1.46 million white adults. N Engl J Med 2010; 363: 2211–2219.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Jung UJ, Choi MS . Obesity and its metabolic complications: the role of adipokines and the relationship between obesity, inflammation, insulin resistance, dyslipidemia and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Int J Mol Sci 2014; 15: 6184–6223.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Anderson PD, Mehta NN, Wolfe ML, Hinkle CC, Pruscino L, Comiskey LL et al. Innate immunity modulates adipokines in humans. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2007; 92: 2272–2279.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Fasshauer M, Bluher M . Adipokines in health and disease. Trends Pharmacol Sci 2015; 36: 461–470.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Mancuso P . The role of adipokines in chronic inflammation. Immunotargets Ther 2016; 5: 47–56.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Viswanath V, Danda D . Inflammation, metabolism and adipokines: toward a unified theory. Int J Rheum Dis 2016; 19: 633–636.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Connelly PW, Hanley AJ . Adiponectin, adipokines, and the need for long-term human studies with comprehensive end points. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol 2016; 36: 2136–2137.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Boeing H, Wahrendorf J, Becker N . EPIC-Germany–A source for studies into diet and risk of chronic diseases. European Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. Ann Nutr Metab 1999; 43: 195–204.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Peters T, Brage S, Westgate K, Franks PW, Gradmark A, Diaz MJT et al. Validity of a short questionnaire to assess physical activity in 10 European countries. Eur J Epidemiol 2012; 27: 15–25.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Xu A, Tso AW, Cheung BM, Wang Y, Wat NM, Fong CH et al. Circulating adipocyte-fatty acid binding protein levels predict the development of the metabolic syndrome: a 5-year prospective study. Circulation 2007; 115: 1537–1543.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Hotamisligil GS, Bernlohr DA . Metabolic functions of FABPs–mechanisms and therapeutic implications. Nature Rev Endocrinol 2015; 11: 592–605.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. Flo TH, Smith KD, Sato S, Rodriguez DJ, Holmes MA, Strong RK et al. Lipocalin 2 mediates an innate immune response to bacterial infection by sequestrating iron. Nature 2004; 432: 917–921.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Wu G, Li H, Zhou M, Fang Q, Bao Y, Xu A et al. Mechanism and clinical evidence of lipocalin-2 and adipocyte fatty acid-binding protein linking obesity and atherosclerosis. Diabetes Metab Res Rev 2014; 30: 447–456.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. O'Connor T, Borsig L, Heikenwalder M . CCL2-CCR2 signaling in disease pathogenesis. Endocr Metab Immune Disord Drug Targets 2015; 15: 105–118.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Goossens GH . The role of adipose tissue dysfunction in the pathogenesis of obesity-related insulin resistance. Physiol Behav 2008; 94: 206–218.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Lee SA, Kallianpur A, Xiang YB, Wen W, Cai Q, Liu D et al. Intra-individual variation of plasma adipokine levels and utility of single measurement of these biomarkers in population-based studies. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2007; 16: 2464–2470.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  18. Linkov F, Gu Y, Arslan AA, Liu M, Shore RE, Velikokhatnaya L et al. Reliability of tumor markers, chemokines, and metastasis-related molecules in serum. Eur Cytokine Netw 2009; 20: 21–26.

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  19. Engelberger RP, Limacher A, Kucher N, Baumann F, Silbernagel G, Benghozi R et al. Biological variation of established and novel biomarkers for atherosclerosis: Results from a prospective, parallel-group cohort study. Clin Chim Acta 2015; 447: 16–22.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Linscheid P, Seboek D, Nylen ES, Langer I, Schlatter M, Becker KL et al. In vitro and in vivo calcitonin I gene expression in parenchymal cells: a novel product of human adipose tissue. Endocrinology 2003; 144: 5578–5584.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Abbasi A, Corpeleijn E, Postmus D, Gansevoort RT, de Jong PE, Gans RO et al. Plasma procalcitonin is associated with obesity, insulin resistance, and the metabolic syndrome. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2010; 95: E26–E31.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Nicoletto BB, Canani LH . The role of progranulin in diabetes and kidney disease. Diabetol Metab Syndr 2015; 7: 117.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Youn BS, Kloting N, Kratzsch J, Lee N, Park JW, Song ES et al. Serum vaspin concentrations in human obesity and type 2 diabetes. Diabetes 2008; 57: 372–377.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  24. Sommer G, Garten A, Petzold S, Beck-Sickinger AG, Bluher M, Stumvoll M et al. Visfatin/PBEF/Nampt: structure, regulation and potential function of a novel adipokine. Clin Sci 2008; 115: 13–23.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  25. Flehmig G, Scholz M, Kloting N, Fasshauer M, Tonjes A, Stumvoll M et al. Identification of adipokine clusters related to parameters of fat mass, insulin sensitivity and inflammation. PloS One 2014; 9: e99785.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Srikanthan K, Feyh A, Visweshwar H, Shapiro JI, Sodhi K . Systematic review of metabolic syndrome biomarkers: a panel for early detection, management, and risk stratification in the West Virginian population. Int J Med Sci 2016; 13: 25–38.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We express special thanks to Katrin Sprengel and Tanja Ahrens (Department of Clinical Nutrition, DIfE) for their valuable work on biomarker measurements. We thank the Human Study Centre, DIfE for data collection and biological sample logistics. We express special thanks to Dr Manuela Bergmann for her contribution by leading the underlying processes of data generation, as well as to Silke Navia Fruth and Herbert Piechot for their valuable assistance with biosample management. Particular thanks are given to the data managers, especially Ellen Kohlsdorf. Finally, we express special thanks to all EPIC-Potsdam participants for their invaluable contribution to the study.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, Nutrition, Immunity and Metabolism Start-up Lab, German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke (DIfE), Nuthetal, Germany

    F Eichelmann & K Aleksandrova

  2. Department of Clinical Nutrition, German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke, DIfE, Nuthetal, Germany

    N Rudovich & A F Pfeiffer

  3. Department of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Nutrition, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Charité University Medicine, Berlin, Germany

    N Rudovich & A F Pfeiffer

  4. Spital Bülach, Bülach, Switzerland

    N Rudovich

  5. German Center of Diabetes Research (DZD), Germany

    N Rudovich, A F Pfeiffer & M B Schulze

  6. Department of Molecular Epidemiology, German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke (DIfE), Nuthetal, Germany

    M B Schulze

  7. Institute of Epidemiology, Christian-Albrechts University Kiel, Kiel, Germany

    R D Giuseppe

  8. Department of Epidemiology, German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke (DIfE), Nuthetal, Germany

    H Boeing

Authors
  1. F Eichelmann
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. N Rudovich
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. A F Pfeiffer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. M B Schulze
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. R D Giuseppe
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. H Boeing
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. K Aleksandrova
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to K Aleksandrova.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Supplementary Information accompanies this paper on International Journal of Obesity website

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Eichelmann, F., Rudovich, N., Pfeiffer, A. et al. Novel adipokines: methodological utility in human obesity research. Int J Obes 41, 976–981 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2017.68

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2017.68

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links