Minireview: nuclear receptor coregulators of the p160 family: insights into inflammation and metabolism.

ABSTRACT

Nuclear receptor coactivators (NCOAs) are multifunctional transcriptional coregulators for a growing number of signal-activated transcription factors. The members of the p160 family (NCOA1/2/3) are increasingly recognized as essential and nonredundant players in a number of physiological processes. In particular, accumulating evidence points to the pivotal roles that these coregulators play in inflammatory and metabolic pathways, both under homeostasis and in disease. Given that chronic inflammation of metabolic tissues ("metainflammation") is a driving force for the widespread epidemic of obesity, insulin resistance, cardiovascular disease, and associated comorbidities, deciphering the role of NCOAs in "normal" vs "pathological" inflammation and in metabolic processes is indeed a subject of extreme biomedical importance. Here, we review the evolving and, at times, contradictory, literature on the pleiotropic functions of NCOA1/2/3 in inflammation and metabolism as related to nuclear receptor actions and beyond. We then briefly discuss the potential utility of NCOAs as predictive markers for disease and/or possible therapeutic targets once a better understanding of their molecular and physiological actions is achieved.