ABSTRACT
In 1983, adipsin was identifi ed and found to be specifi cally expressed in diff erentiated adipocytes. Spiegelman’s group isolated several clones from cDNA libraries corresponding to mRNA that were highly expressed during adipocyte diff erentiation (Spiegelman et al. 1983). One of these mRNA encoded a protein that was a novel member of the serine protease family at the time and named adipsin (Cook et al. 1985). Enzymatic analysis showed that adipsin has the structure of human complement factor D (Rosen et al. 1989). Antibody neutralization experiments suggest that adipsin is the murine homology of human complement factor D (Rosen et al. 1989). Recombinant adipsin substituted for complement factor D in functional assays (Rosen et al. 1989). Cloning of human adipsin cDNA confi rmed that adipsin and complement factor D were identical in human (White et al. 1992).
