Functional and Mechanistic Integration of Infection and the Metabolic Syndrome

The metabolic syndrome refers to a well defined group of risk factors, including central obesity and inflammation, for the development of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Interestingly, many studies have recently led to the emergence of somewhat unexpected relationships between several infectious diseases and various aspects of the metabolic syndrome. Our understanding of the mechanisms underlying these interactions is also rapidly developing and some of these are summarized in this article. We will focus first on bacterial infection, and most notably the role of gut microbiota in regulaton of both obesity and inflammation. In particular, we focus on the role of inflammasomes and propose that understanding the role of Toll-like receptors and Nod-like receptors in the pathogenesis of inflammatory disorders with or without infection may provide novel targets for prevention and/or treatment of associated diseases. Secondly, chronic bacterial or viral infection and emerging links with metabolism will be reviewed. Finally, consideratons of biomarkers for metabolic syndrome, in particular lipocalin-2, and their link with infection will be discussed.