Role of PPAR receptor in different diseases and their ligands: Physiological importance and clinical implications

The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors (PPAR-α, PPAR-β/δ, and PPAR-γ) are members of the nuclear receptor super-family, acting as ligand-inducible transcription factors and play crucial roles in glucose and lipid metabolism. These are a well-known receptor for diabetic therapy, not only influence the cardiovascular systems but are also expressed in many human solid tumors. For atherosclerosis, inflammation, and hypertension, the PPARs are considered as important therapeutic targets. Furthermore, it has been suggested that careful designing of partial agonists for PPARs, may show improvement with the side effects and also increase the therapeutic value for different diseases as cancer, inflammation and cardiovascular etc. This review summaries structural features of PPAR receptors, illustrates the method of PPAR modulator design, then analyzes recent dual- and pan-agonist with different therapeutic outcomes of the receptor to be used as a target for drugs in future. The advances in PPARs antagonists, their classification and structure-activity relationship are also summarized.