Endocrine Abstracts

In human adipocytes the cAMP-dependent pathway mediates signals originating from the activation of beta-adrenergic receptors, thus playing a key role in the regulation of important metabolic processes such as lipolysis and thermogenesis. CyclicAMP effects are mainly mediated by cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA), a tetrameric enzyme composed by two catalytic subunits associated with two regulatory (R) subunits. There are four different R subunit genes and proteins (R1A, R1B, ...