FUNCTIONS OF ADIPONECTIN

It is clear that obesity is a major risk factor for morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular causes (1). Current advanced knowledge has re-vealed that adipose tissue is not only a simple en-ergy pool, but it also secretes metabolic hor-mones, enzymes, anti-fibrinolytic proteins, and inflammatory cytokines (2,3). These secretory proteins, which have been collectively named adipokines (3), include leptin (4), tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) (5), plasminogen activator in-hibitor type-1 (PAI-1) (6), adipsin (7), resistin (8), and adiponectin (9). In this review; we focus on the role of adiponectin in atherosclerotic dis-ease and discuss its potential effects on throm-bus formation