Melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) was first discovered in the pituitary gland of the chum salmon for its role in the regulation of skin pallor. Currently, MCH is known to be present in the brains of organisms ranging from fish to mammals. MCH has been suggested to be conserved principally as a central neuromodulator or neurotransmitter in the brain. Indeed, MCH is considered to regulate food ...

BACKGROUND In order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 4 and 5, the Chinese Government has invested greatly in improving maternal and child health (MCH) with impressive results. However, one of the most important barriers for further improvement is the uneven distribution of MCH human resources. There is little information about the distribution, quantity and capacity of the Chin...

The MCH and dopamine receptor systems have been shown to modulate a number of behaviors related to reward processing, addiction, and neuropsychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia and depression. In addition, MCH and dopamine receptors can interact in a positive manner, for example in the expression of cocaine self-administration. A recent report (Chung et al., 2011a) showed that the DA1/DA2...

A fluorescence microscopy method to directly follow the localization of defined proteins in Staphylococcus was hampered by the unstable fluorescence of fluorescent proteins. Here, we constructed plasmid (pCX) encoded red fluorescence (RF) mCherry (mCh) hybrids, namely mCh-cyto (no signal peptide and no sorting sequence), mCh-sec (with signal peptide), and mCh-cw (with signal peptide and cell wa...

Melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) is highly expressed in the brain and modulates feeding behavior. It is also expressed in some peripheral tissues where its role remains unknown. We have investigated MCH function in human and mouse immune cells. RT-PCR analysis revealed a low expression of prepro-MCH and MCH receptor 1 (MCHR1) but not of MCHR2 transcript in tissular and peripheral blood immun...

Many chronic human lung diseases have their origin in early childhood, yet most murine models used to study them utilize adult mice. An important component of the asthma phenotype is exaggerated airway responses, frequently modelled by methacholine (MCh) challenge. The present study was undertaken to characterize MCh responses in mice from 2 to 8 wk of age measuring absolute lung volume and vol...

Fibrosis represents a major complication of several chronic diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Treatment of IBD remains a clinical challenge despite several recent therapeutic advances. Melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) is a hypothalamic neuropeptide shown to regulate appetite and energy balance. However, accumulating evidence suggests that MCH has additional biological eff...

23 Fibrosis represents a major complication of several chronic diseases, including inflammatory 24 bowel disease (IBD). Treatment of IBD remains a clinical challenge, despite several recent 25 therapeutic advances. Melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) is a hypothalamic 26 neuropeptide shown to regulate appetite and energy balance. However, accumulating 27 evidence suggests that MCH has additiona...

External Evaluator: Hisae Takahashi, Ernst & Young Sustainability Co., Ltd. 0. Summary This project was conducted to integrate the Maternal and Child Health (hereinafter referred to as “MCH”) service by utilizing the MCH Hand Book (hereinafter referred to as “HB”) and strengthening a system for sustaining the MCH service through the MCH HB in Indonesia. The project direction was consistent with...