**10. Monomeric structure**

There are four distinct regions of adiponectin. The protein starts with a short signal sequence which acts to target the hormone for secretion outside the cell, then it leads into a short region that is variable between species, followed by an amino-acid region that shows similarity with collagenous protein, and finally ending with a globular domain. The three dimensional structure of its C-terminal globular domain is similar to that of tumor necrosis factor–alpha (TNF-α), even though there is no sequence homology at the primary structure level. [32].
