Human FGF-21 Is a Substrate of Fibroblast Activation Protein

Overview

Journal PLoS One

Specialties General Medicine
Science

Date 2016 Mar 11

PMID 26962859

Citations 34

Authors

Andrew L Coppage

Kathryn R Heard

Matthew T DiMare

Yuxin Liu

Wengen Wu

Jack H Lai

William W Bachovchin

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

FGF-21 is a key regulator of metabolism and potential drug candidate for the treatment of type II diabetes and other metabolic disorders. However, the half-life of active, circulating, human FGF-21 has recently been shown to be limited in mice and monkeys by a proteolytic cleavage between P171 and S172. Here, we show that fibroblast activation protein is the enzyme responsible for this proteolysis by demonstrating that purified FAP cleaves human FGF-21 at this site in vitro, and that an FAP-specific inhibitor, ARI-3099, blocks the activity in mouse, monkey and human plasma and prolongs the half-life of circulating human FGF-21 in mice. Mouse FGF-21, however, lacks the FAP cleavage site and is not cleaved by FAP. These findings indicate FAP may function in the regulation of metabolism and that FAP inhibitors may prove useful in the treatment of diabetes and metabolic disorders in humans, but pre-clinical proof of concept studies in rodents will be problematic.

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