Endocrine Abstracts

Objectives: The melanocortin 4 receptor (MC4R) belonging to the large superfamily of G-protein coupled receptors plays a crucial role in hypothalamic weight regulation. In approximately 3–5% of investigated obese patients inactivating MC4R mutations are the underlying molecular cause for early onset obesity. Functional characterisation revealed for specific partial loss of function MC4R mutations that restoration of receptor function is possible by usage of highly potent ...

The melanocortin-4-receptor (MC4R) plays an important role in body weight regulation. Mutations in the MC4R gene are the most common genetic cause for obesity. The most frequent Northern European mutation is Y35X, associated with D37V on the same allele. Furthermore, there are two variants with a relatively high frequency: V103I and S127L. In rare cases, we identified the variants V103I and S127L on the same allele. The occurrence of two variants on the same allele makes a fou...

Mutations in the hypothalamic expressed MC4R gene are the most frequent cause of monogenetic obesity. This Gαs-Protein coupled receptor (GPCR) is activated by endogenous ligands α- and β-MSH and is inhibited by the only known endogenous inverse agonist and antagonist Agouti related peptide (AgRP). Naturally occurring mutations help to understand activation mechanisms of the human MC4R.We previously described a constitutively act...

Introduction: In the past 20 years, obesity has become a major health problem occurring as well in adults as in children. Beside environmental influences on body weight, the genetic background of a person plays an important role in body weight control. After the description of monogenetic mutations linked to obesity most current studies investigate polygenetic forms of obesity.Recent studies showed an association between two SNPs, located in the promoter...

Objective: The increasing incidence of obesity is a major health problem world-wide. So far, mutations were identified in genes encoding major contributors in energy homeostasis. With the exception of mutations in the melanocortin-4-receptor gene (MC4R) obesity-causing mutations are very rare. To date great efforts were undertaken to identify gene variants that contribute to polygenic obesity. The GIPR belongs to the large superfamily of G-protein coupled recepto...