Insulin-sensitizing thiazolidinediones exert a pleiotropic pharmacology with therapeutic potential in a number of disease states ranging from metabolic syndrome and diabetes to neurodegeneration and cancer. A growing understanding of their mechanism of action, working from the site of their binding in the mitochondrion, provides insight into the mechanism of action of the insulin sensitizers and the reasons for their pleiotropic pharmacology. This review helps to frame the direction of future work that should be helpful in setting a new direction for the discovery and development of new, more useful therapeutic agents for metabolic disease.
Keywords: diabetes mellitus; insulin resistance; thiazolidinediones.
© 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.