CXCL12 and metabolic syndrome: Slight elevations in serum SDF1α levels were furthermore indicative of disease progression (Jung et al., 2009) and progenitor cell mobilization defects (Jung et al., 2009; Jialal et al., 2010) in the metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes groups; SDF1α is known to be a potent inducer of stem cell mobilization and migration (Hattori et al., 2001; Huang and Liu, 2012), but metabolic and inflammatory dysregulation during obesity seem to have disrupted the chemotactic effects of this factor (Holmes, 2015).