Endocrine Abstracts

The highly conserved Leptin-Melanocortin signaling pathway plays a central role in the regulation of body weight and energy expenditure. Mutations in POMC and MC-4R lead to dosage dependent monogenetic obesity. However, several evidences suggest an epigenetic impact on the regulation of body weight. Moreover it has been shown recently that variants of the FTO gene, which affects ss DNA methylation in the arcuate nucleus, correlate with increased body weight in children and adu...