Homotherapy for heteropathy: Interleukin-41 and its biological functions

Interleukin-41 (IL-41) is a newly discovered cytokine, named Cometin, Subfatin, meteorin-like transcription (Metrnl), and so forth. It is widely expressed in animals and can exert its biological roles through autocrine and paracrine forms. It has functions such as anti-inflammatory, improving body metabolism, regulating immunity, regulating fat metabolism and participates in the process of autoimmune disease or inflammatory injury. It plays an important role in psoriasis, diabetes, Crohn's disease (CD), osteoarthritis, Kawasaki disease (KD), Graves' disease, autoimmune hepatitis, infertility, obesity, sepsis, cardiovascular diseases and respiratory diseases. This paper reviews the biological functions of IL-41, the relationship between IL-41 and diseases, the effects of IL-41 in the cytokine network and the possible signalling pathways. In order to explore the same target or the same drug for the treatment of different diseases from the perspective of homotherapy for heteropathy, cytokine strategies based on IL-41 have been put forward for the precise treatment of immune diseases and inflammatory diseases. It is worth noting that IL-41 related preparations for lung protection and smoking cessation are interesting research fields.