Recent achievements in the biology and the function of adipose tissue have regarded white adipose tissue (WAT) as an important endocrine and secretory organ. Releasing a series of multiple-function mediators, WAT is involved in a wide spectrum of diseases, including not only cardiovascular and metabolic complications, such as atherosclerosis and type 2 diabetes, but also inflammatory- and immune-related disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and osteoarthritis (OA). A large number of these mediators, called adipokines, such as tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), leptin, adiponectin, resistin, chemerin, interleukin-6 (IL-6), visfatin, and so on have been identified and studied widely. Important advances related to these proteins shed new insights into the pathophysiological mechanisms of many complicated diseases, although details of which remain unclear. Adiponectin, one of the most widely investigated adipokine, has been shown to possess both anti- and pro-inflammatory effects. RA is a chronic systemic inflammatory-related autoimmune disease. Accumulated evidence has demonstrated that cytokines and adipokines play an important role in the pathogenesis of RA. In this review, we have summarized the most recent advances in adiponectin research in the context of RA, focusing primarily on its effect on RA-related cells, its regulation on pro-inflammatory cytokines, as well as its validation as a biomarker for RA.
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