Association of fetuin-A with the pathogenesis of metabolic diseases

Fetuin-A is a glycoprotein that is synthesized by liver cells. Studies have shown that this hepatokine is linked to various metabolic disturbances such as obesity, and diabetes. Therefore, this study was designed to evaluate the role of fetuin-A in the pathogenesis of metabolic disturbances.

The present study was a review article. The terms of “fetuin-A”, “diabetes”, “obesity”, “chronic kidney disease (CKD)”, “cardiovascular disease (CVD)”, “non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)”, “cancer”, “bone metabolic diseases” and “metabolic disease” were used for searching of research papers in databases including Embase, Scopus, Web of Science, PubMed and Google Scholar. The literature search was limited to papers published up to November 2019.

Fetuin-A could be involved in the pathogenesis of metabolic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, CKD, CVD, cancer, bone metabolic diseases, and NAFLD through various signaling pathways.

The results of the current study showed that fetuin-A could be involved in the pathogenesis of the metabolic disease. However, the study on these findings needs further research and a better understanding of these pathomechanism communications, which can be promising and helpful in preventing and better targeting metabolic disorders.