Progress of Experimental Research on the Correlation Between Growth Differentiation Factor 15 and Diabetes Mellitus

Diabetes mellitus and its complications are serious epidemic diseases associated with metabolism and an important health and socioeconomic problem worldwide. Therefore, there is still a need to find new drug targets to reduce the occurrence and development of diabetes mellitus and related complications. Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug activator gene-1(NAG-1), also known as growth differentiation factor 15(GDF15), is a divergent member of the transforming growth factor-β(TGF-β) superfamily(hereinafter referred to as NAG-1/GDF15). NAG-1/GDF15 plays an important regulatory role in a variety of diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and diabetes mellitus. This review briefly introduced the structure and expression regulation mechanism of NAG-1/GDF15, focused on the research progress and molecular mechanism of NAG-1/GDF15 in diabetes mellitus-related in vivo and in vitro studies, and summarized the research of anti-diabetic drug regulating NAG-1/GDF15. This review will provided a theoretical basis for the basic research of NAG-1/GDF15 in diabetes mellitus and related metabolic diseases and the development of anti-diabetic drugs regulating NAG-1/GDF15 from a broad aspect.