Millennium Pharmaceuticals and its corporate partner Hoffman-La Roche,in collaboration with Oregon Health Sciences University, USA, have identified a new signaling pathway for the regulation of body weight, they say. The full findings were published in the January 10 issue of Cell.
The Cell article suggested that the G protein-coupled melanocortin-4 receptor (MC4-R), and an endogenous ligand, melanocyte-stimulating hormone, may have an important role to play in both metabolism and obesity. In an animal model of maturity-onset diabetes, mice lacking MC4-R expression exhibited increased weight as well as high blood sugar and insulin levels, symptoms also related to the condition in humans. The identification of this neuronal pathway offers new therapeutic targets for the development of obesity drugs, say the companies.
MC4-R Deficiency Leads To Obesity? For the first four weeks of life, the weights of the MC4-R-deficient mice and the control group remained largely the same. After this time, the MC4-R-deficient mice gained substantial amounts of weight, thus at 15 weeks of age, the female MC4-R-deficient mice were on average twice as heavy as their control group, while the male MC4-R-deficient mice were 50% heavier than the male control group. In addition to this finding, the lack of the MC4-R resulted in significantly more food consumption (46%).
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