Roles and regulation of Aquaporin-3 in maintaining the gut health: an updated review

Cui Zhu; Xiaoyan Nie; Qi Lu; Yinshan Bai; Zongyong Jiang

doi:10.3389/fphys.2023.1264570

Roles and regulation of Aquaporin-3 in maintaining the gut health: an updated review

Front Physiol. 2023 Nov 28:14:1264570. doi: 10.3389/fphys.2023.1264570. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Cui Zhu¹, Xiaoyan Nie¹, Qi Lu¹, Yinshan Bai¹, Zongyong Jiang²

Affiliations

¹ School of Life Science and Engineering, Foshan University, Foshan, China.
² Institute of Animal Science, Guangdong Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Guangzhou, China.

Abstract

Aquaporin-3 (AQP3) is a predominant water channel protein expressed in the intestine, and plays important roles in the gut physiology and pathophysiology due to its permeability to water, glycerol and hydrogen peroxide. In this review, we systematically summarized the current understanding of the expression of AQP3 in the intestine of different species, and focused on the potential roles of AQP3 in water transport, different types of diarrhea and constipation, intestinal inflammation, intestinal barrier function, oxidative stress, and autophagy. These updated findings have supported that AQP3 may function as an important target in maintaining gut health of human and animals.

Keywords: Aquaporin 3; autophagy; barrier function; gut health; inflammation; oxidative stress.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

The author(s) declare financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This research was funded by the grants from the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation, China (Grant Number 2022A1515011185).