Role of TNF alpha in prediabetic metabolic syndrome induced endothelial dysfunction

Our understanding of obesity has begun to recognize many factors involved in etiology, pathophysiology and clinical and microvascular manifestations of this common disease. The mechanisms involved in the etiology of microvascular complications have been described, but the signaling pathways always interact to amplify one another and induce endothelial dysfunction. Inflammation is a condition that underscores many cardiovascular pathologies including endothelial dysfunction, but no link is yet established between the vascular pathology of the metabolic syndrome with a particular inflammatory cytokine. Our results demonstrate the endothelial dysfunction occurring in obesity is the result of effects of the inflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF) and subsequent production of superoxide.