PPAR Receptor Activation: Experimental Studies on Cardiac Structure and Function

The PPARs are a family of three ligand-activated nuclear receptors: PPARalpha, PPARbeta/delta and PPARgamma. During the past 20 years, PPARs have been recognized as having important roles in the regulation of glucose and fatty acid metabolism, cell differentiation and immune function. In addition, all of the PPARs have been demonstrated to be expressed in the heart. The use of selective ligands, as well as certain conditional knockout and transgenic mouse models, has enabled the direct and indirect roles of PPARs in the regulation of fatty acid and glucose metabolism, hypertrophy, lipotoxicity, inflammation, and the circadian control of blood pressure and heart rate to be determined. This review discusses the evidence for the functions of PPARs as well as the new and emerging roles of PPAR pathways in cardiac structure and function.