Context (archaeology)

Biology

Endocrinology

Metabolic disease

Paleontology

Immunology

Bioinformatics

Adipokine

Insulin resistance

Cytokine

Metabolic network

Inflammation

Medicine

Obesity

Tumor necrosis factor alpha

Adipose tissue

Nature Metabolism

Tumour necrosis factor (TNF) is a classical, pleiotropic pro-inflammatory cytokine. It is also the first 'adipokine' described to be produced from adipose tissue, regulated in obesity and proposed to contribute to obesity-associated metabolic disease. In this review, we provide an overview of TNF in the context of metabolic inflammation or metaflammation, its discovery as a metabolic messenger, its sites and mechanisms of action and some critical considerations for future research. Although we focus on TNF and the studies that elucidated its immunometabolic actions, we highlight a conceptual framework, generated by these studies, that is equally applicable to the complex network of pro-inflammatory signals, their biological activity and their integration with metabolic regulation, and to the field of immunometabolism more broadly.

Metabolic Messengers: tumour necrosis factor