Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Endemic goiter occurs frequently in iodine deficient areas. Our past medical survey revealed that goiter was endemic in Xinjiang, Northwestern China, because, several elderly Uygur subjects had goiter. In the present study, several medical parameters were compared between subjects with and those without goiter.Methods: Elderly Uygur (age, 65–70 years n=99) and very old Uygur subjects (age, >90 years n=111) were hosp...

Motilin (M), erythromycin (EM) and ghrelin (G) are recognized as important regulators of gastrointestinal motor function in humans that are mediated by class I guanine nucleotide-binding protein (G protein)-coupled motilin receptor (MR) and growth hormone secretagogue receptor (GHSR). These receptors have also been demonstrated as clinically useful pharmacological targets. However, a molecular relationship between MR and GHSR activation has been unclear. We generated human MR ...

The availability of genome sequences from humans and multiple model organisms has facilitated the identification of many human plasma membrane receptor families and allowed the analysis of their phylogeny. We traced the evolution of known families of human plasma membrane receptors for inclusion in the Human Plasma Membrane Receptome database at http://receptome.stanford.edu (Science STKE. 2003). Using an evolutionary approach, we identified new polypeptide hormones and recept...

The motilin receptor (MLNR) belongs to a family of Class I G protein-coupled receptors, and is an important endogenous regulator of gastrointestinal motor function. Motilin and erythromycin (EM), two chemically distinct full agonists of the motilin receptor, bind to distinct regions of this receptor, while the action of these different chemical classes of agonists likely yields a common activation state of the cytosolic face of this receptor that is responsible for interaction...