PubMed meta-analysis identified Cer as the downstream metabolic messenger of Lep cascade
To discover the potential metabolic messengers downstream of Lep signaling cascade, we conducted a literature mining study based on the PubMed database. With the keyword of “Leptin; Lipid Metabolism”, 4212 publications were obtained from years of 2000 to 2020. Among 4212 publications, 78 studies were designed to investigate the biology underlying the cytoplasmic interactions between Lep and Cer at the molecular level. Afterwards, 14 and 150 publications were obtained by searching the keywords of “Ceramide; Pregnancy” and “Ceramide; Preeclampsia”, respectively, suggesting potential mechanistic implications of Cer in PE pathophysiology. Based on these results, Cer and its biosynthetic precursor dihydroceramide (DHCer) were selected as the biomarker candidates to generate our hypothesis and launched the following analyses.