Melanocortin therapy by using adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) or non-steroidogenic melanocortin peptides attenuates proteinuria and glomerular injury in experimental glomerular diseases and induces remission of nephrotic syndrome in patients with diverse glomerulopathies, even those resistant to steroids. The underlying mechanism remains elusive, but the role of melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R...

Melanocortin 1 Receptor (MC1R) has been studied in a wide variety of domestic animals (Klungland et al. 1995; Marklund et al. 1996; Våge et al. 1997; Kijas et al. 1998; Newton et al. 2000; Våge et al. 2003), and also several wild animals (Robbins et al. 1993; Ritland et al. 2001; Eizirik et al. 2003; Nachman et al. 2003; McRobie et al. 2009) in relation to coat color variation. A variety of phe...

The original strain of proopiomelanocortin (POMC)-deficient mice (Pomc-/-) was generated by homologous recombination in 129X1/SvJ (A(w)/A(w))-derived embryonic stem cells using a targeting construct that deleted exon 3, encoding all the known functional POMC-derived peptides including alpha MSH, from the Pomc gene. Although these Pomc-/- mice exhibited adrenal hypoplasia and obesity similar to ...

Melanocortin signalling is mediated by binding to a family of G protein-coupled receptors that positively couple to adenylyl cyclase. Tetrapod species have five melanocortin (MC(1)-MC(5)) receptors. The number of receptors varies in fish, zebrafish, for example, having six melanocortin receptors, with two copies of the melanocortin MC(5) receptor, while pufferfish have 4 receptors with no melan...

OBJECTIVE Qingyu pig, a Chinese indigenous pig breed, exhibits two types of coat colour phenotypes, including pure black and white with black spotting respectively. Melanocortin receptor 1 (MC1R) and agouti signaling protein (ASIP) are two widely reported pivotal genes that significantly affect the regulation of coat colour. The objectives of this study were to investigate whether the polymorph...

We report that a single nucleotide replacement in the melanocortin 1 receptor gene [1] (mc1r) is responsible for the white coat color of the "Kermode" bear [2], a color phase of the black bear (Ursus americanus Pallus) found in the rainforests along the north coast of British Columbia. In a sample of 220 bears, of which 22 were white, there was complete association of a recessive Tyr-to-Cys rep...

Objective(s): Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disease resulting from inflammatory destruction of islets β-cells. Nowadays, progress in cell therapy, especially mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) proposes numerous potential remedies for T1D. We aimed to investigate the combination therapeutic effect of these cells with insulin and metformin on neuropeptide Y, melanoco...