Endocrine Abstracts

GLUT8 is a class 3 sugar transport facilitator, and transports glucose with high affinity (km~2 mM). GLUT8 mRNA is expressed in brain, heart, skeletal muscle, adipose tissue, adrenal gland, liver and at particulary high levels in testis. In testis, the GLUT8 protein is located in an intracellular compartment of spermatocytes, spermatids and mature spermatozoa. GLUT8 contains an N-terminal dileucine sorting signal retaining the transporter in an intracellular compartment. So fa...

Promiscuous multi-agonists that simultaneously activate two or three key receptors (incretin- and/or glucagon receptor) were recently shown to improve glycemic control in mice. Here we investigated the underlying mechanisms of multi-agonists to enhance insulin secretion in murine islets and human pancreatic β-cells. These mixed agonists display a greater potency in cAMP signaling as compared to the native incretins. However, pharmacological blockade of cAMP signaling only...

The melanocortin 4 receptor (MC4R) represents the major hypothalamic G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) controlling feeding behavior and therefore body weight regulation. MC4R is highly expressed in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) where hormonal and neuroendocrine signals from periphery and arcuate nucleus (ARC) are allocated. MC4R knockout in mice or natural occurring loss-of function variants result in hyperphagia and early-onset obesity. MC4R mutations represent the most f...