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PHARMACOLOGY

Colchicine—an old dog with new tricks

Nature Metabolism volume 3, pages 451–452 (2021)Cite this article

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Colchicine is an anti-inflammatory agent that suppresses myeloid cell activation and is commonly used to treat gout. In this issue of Nature Metabolism, Weng et al. demonstrate that colchicine exerts its anti-inflammatory effects in mice via the induction of the hormone GDF-15 in the liver.

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Fig. 1: Colchicine induces hepatic GDF-15, which in turn suppresses inflammation by inhibiting myeloid cell activation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. MRC Metabolic Diseases Unit, Wellcome Trust-Medical Research Council Institute of Metabolic Science, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Samuel M. Lockhart

  2. MRC Metabolic Diseases Unit, Wellcome Trust-Medical Research Council Institute of Metabolic Science, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Stephen O’Rahilly

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  1. Samuel M. Lockhart
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  2. Stephen O’Rahilly
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Correspondence to Stephen O’Rahilly.

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Competing interests

S.O.R. is an employee of the University of Cambridge and has provided remunerated consultancy services to the following pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies: Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Novo Nordisk, GSK and ERX. S.M.L. has no relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

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Lockhart, S.M., O’Rahilly, S. Colchicine—an old dog with new tricks. Nat Metab 3, 451–452 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s42255-021-00360-4

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