Direct Actions of Leptin on Bone Remodeling

Excerpt

From the time of its original description almost a decade ago [1] leptin was regarded as a hormone originating in the adipocyte whose primary target was within the central nervous system. There, it regulates appetite and reproductive function. It has now become clear that leptin receptors are much more widely distributed than just the hypothalamus, and the skeleton has emerged as an important site of action of leptin. This is suggested by the demonstration of the signalling form of the leptin receptor in human osteoblasts [2, 3, 4], rat osteoblasts [5, 6], human chondrocytes [6], porcine chondrocytes [2], human mesenchymal stem cells undergoing osteogenic differentiation [7], and in osteoblastic and chondrocytic cell lines [5, 8]. …