Fig. 5.

Schematic illustration of the exerkine research continuum. Owing to technological advances, remarkable progress is being made in identifying new exerkines and describing their kinetics in response to an acute bout of exercise (left section of the figure). To uncover exerkine-mediated tissue adaptions, some studies have identified molecular targets of exerkines (e.g., exerkine receptors) that transduce these effects (central section of the figure). However, less attention is devoted to potential further target tissues that also express these molecular targets. In-depth characterization of global exerkine dynamics—i.e., the interaction of exerkines with different target tissues—holds the potential to advance our understanding of the pan-tissue benefits mediated by exercise (right section of the figure). Created with BioRender.com