The physiological role of nucleobindin-2/nesfatin-1 and their potential clinical significance

Nucleobindin-2 is a multidomain protein. Nucleobindin-2 can be cleaved into three peptide products: nesfatin-1, nesfatin-2 and nesfatin-3. It has been also shown that both Nucleobindin-2 and nesfatin-1 exhibit anorexigenic effect in rodents. In this review, we focused on a systematic characteristic of Nucleobindin-2, its anorexigenic effect and discussed possible mechanisms of its action. The first one is associated with melanocortin system and is leptin independent. The second - involves neurons that produce orexigenic neuropeptide Y. This has allowed integrating key findings which have important implications for treatment of obesity. We also presented Nucleobindin-2/nesfatin-1 as proteins which might become potentially important for understanding and treatment of such diseases as epilepsy, acute appendicitis or cancer. It has been shown that the Nucleobindin-2 function in cancerogenesis may be dual. The high level of Nucleobindin-2 and nesfatin-1 expression was found in colony, breast and endometrium cancer cells. Additionally, Nucleobindin-2/nesfatin-1 induced the proliferation process of these cells. In the future, Nucleobindin-2/nesfatin-1 may be used as a potential biomarker in diagnosis. However, Nucleobindin-2/nesfatin-1 inhibited ovarian and adrenocortical cancer cells proliferation and stimulated its apoptosis. The action of both proteins involved variety of metabolic pathways. The knowledge about activity control of Nucleobindin-2/nesfatin-1 may contribute to new breakthrough in medicine.