MSP: An emerging player in metabolic syndrome

Macrophage stimulating protein (MSP) was firstly discovered in 1976 as a serum protein which could stimulate the chemotactic response, migration and spreading of mouse peritoneal resident macrophages [1]. MSP was later shown to be involved in inflammatory responses and following studies demonstrated MSP to be a crucial regulator of inflammation in multiple animal disease models of the liver, kidney, lung, gut and other organs [2–5]. Studies showed that homozygous MSP knockout mice (MSP-/- mice) were viable without any obvious abnormalities, however they developed hepatic steatosis even fed on normal chow diet [6].

Source: Cytokine and Growth Factor Reviews - October 31, 2014 Category: Molecular Biology Authors: Jieyi Li, Dipanjan Chanda, Ronit Shiri-Sverdlov, Dietbert Neumann Tags: Mini review Source Type: research