The Ob gene product, leptin, is an adipocyte-secreted hormone that centrally regulates
weight control. However, leptin receptor is expressed not only in the central nervous system,
but also in other systems such as reproductive and hematopoietic tissues. Human leptin has
previously been shown to enhance cytokine production by murine peritoneal macrophages.
In this paper we show that human leptin stimulates proliferation in a dose-dependent
manner and functionally activates human circulating monocytes in vitro, by inducing the …