Sharma S, Garfield AS, Shah B, Kleyn P, Ichetovkin I, Moeller IH, Mowrey WR, Van der Ploeg LHT. Current Mechanistic and Pharmacodynamic Understanding of Melanocortin-4 Receptor Activation.
Molecules 2019;
24:molecules24101892. [PMID:
31100979 PMCID:
PMC6572030 DOI:
10.3390/molecules24101892]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 31] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/21/2019] [Revised: 05/15/2019] [Accepted: 05/15/2019] [Indexed: 12/20/2022] Open
Abstract
In this work we summarize our understanding of melanocortin 4 receptor (MC4R) pathway activation, aiming to define a safe and effective therapeutic targeting strategy for the MC4R. Delineation of cellular MC4R pathways has provided evidence for distinct MC4R signaling events characterized by unique receptor activation kinetics. While these studies remain narrow in scope, and have largely been explored with peptidic agonists, the results provide a possible correlation between distinct ligand groups and differential MC4R activation kinetics. In addition, when a set of small-molecule and peptide MC4R agonists are compared, evidence of biased signaling has been reported. The results of such mechanistic studies are discussed.
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