1. Academic Validation
  2. AgRP neurons are not indispensable for body weight maintenance in adult mice

AgRP neurons are not indispensable for body weight maintenance in adult mice

  • Cell Rep. 2023 Jul 8;42(7):112789. doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2023.112789.
Jing Cai 1 Jing Chen 2 Joshua Ortiz-Guzman 3 Jessica Huang 1 Benjamin R Arenkiel 3 Yuchen Wang 4 Yan Zhang 5 Yuyan Shi 4 Qingchun Tong 6 Cheng Zhan 7
Affiliations

Affiliations

  • 1 Brown Institute of Molecular Medicine at McGovern Medical School and Neuroscience Program of MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
  • 2 School of Sport Science, Beijing Sport University, Beijing 100084, China.
  • 3 Duncan Institute of Neurological Research and Department of Neuroscience and Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77030, USA.
  • 4 Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Department of Hematology, The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, Center for Advanced Interdisciplinary Science and Biomedicine of IHM, Biomedical Sciences and Health Laboratory of Anhui Province, School of Life Sciences, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
  • 5 School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200438, China.
  • 6 Brown Institute of Molecular Medicine at McGovern Medical School and Neuroscience Program of MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX 77030, USA. Electronic address: qingchun.tong@uth.tmc.edu.
  • 7 Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, Department of Hematology, The First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, CAS Key Laboratory of Brain Function and Disease, Center for Advanced Interdisciplinary Science and Biomedicine of IHM, Biomedical Sciences and Health Laboratory of Anhui Province, School of Life Sciences, Division of Life Sciences and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China. Electronic address: zhancheng@ustc.edu.cn.
Abstract

In addition to their role in promoting feeding and obesity development, hypothalamic arcuate agouti-related protein/neuropeptide Y (AgRP/NPY) neurons are widely perceived to be indispensable for maintaining normal feeding and body weight in adults, and consistently, acute inhibition of AgRP neurons is known to reduce short-term food intake. Here, we adopted complementary methods to achieve nearly complete ablation of arcuate AgRP/NPY neurons in adult mice and report that lesioning arcuate AgRP/NPY neurons in adult mice causes no apparent alterations in ad libitum feeding or body weight. Consistent with previous studies, loss of AgRP/NPY neurons blunts fasting refeeding. Thus, our studies show that AgRP/NPY neurons are not required for maintaining ad libitum feeding or body weight homeostasis in adult mice.

Keywords

CP: Neuroscience.

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