The hippo kinases MST1/2 in cardiovascular and metabolic diseases: A promising therapeutic target option for pharmacotherapy

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and metabolic disorders are major components of noncom-municable diseases, causing an enormous health and economic burden worldwide. There are common risk factors and developmental mechanisms among them, indicating the far-reaching significance in exploring the corresponding therapeutic targets. MST1/2 kinases are well-established proapoptotic effec-tors that also bidirectionally regulate autophagic activity. Recent studies have demonstrated that MST1/2 influence the outcome of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases by regulating immune inflammation. In addition, drug development against them is in full swing. In this review, we mainly describe the roles and mechanisms of MST1/2 in apoptosis and autophagy in cardiovascular and metabolic events as well as emphasis on the existing evidence for their involvement in immune inflammation. Moreover, we summa-rize the latest progress of pharmacotherapy targeting MST1/2 and propose a new mode of drug combi-nation therapy, which may be beneficial to seek more effective strategies to prevent and treat CVDs and metabolic disorders.@ 2023 Chinese Pharmaceutical Association and Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).