TY - JOUR
T1 - Appetite control
T2 - Worm's-eye-view
AU - You, Young Jai
AU - Avery, Leon
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank Dr. J Kim for comments and reading. Leon Avery’s research is funded by research grants HL46,154 and DK83,593 from the National Institutes of Health and Young-Jai You’s research is supported by 09SDG2,150,070 from American Heart Association.
PY - 2012/10
Y1 - 2012/10
N2 - Food is important to any animal, and a large part of the behavioral repertoire is concerned with ensuring adequate nutrition. Two main nutritional sensations, hunger and satiety, produce opposite behaviors. Hungry animals seek food, increase exploratory behavior and continue feeding once they encounter food. Satiated animals decrease exploratory behavior, take rest, and stop feeding. The signals of hunger or satiety and their effects on physiology and behavior will depend not only on the animal's current nutritional status, but also on its experience and the environment in which the animal evolved. In our novel, nutritionally rich environment, improper control of appetite contributes to diseases from anorexia to the current epidemic of obesity. Despite extraordinary recent advances, genetic contribution to appetite control is still poorly understood partly due to lack of simple genetic model systems. In this review, we will discuss current understanding of molecular and cellular mechanisms by which animals regulate food intake depending on their nutritional status. Then, focusing on relatively less known muscarinic and cGMP signals, we will discuss how the molecular and behavioral aspects of hunger and satiety are conserved in a simple invertebrate model system, Caenorhabditis elegans so as for us to use it to understand the genetics of appetite control.
AB - Food is important to any animal, and a large part of the behavioral repertoire is concerned with ensuring adequate nutrition. Two main nutritional sensations, hunger and satiety, produce opposite behaviors. Hungry animals seek food, increase exploratory behavior and continue feeding once they encounter food. Satiated animals decrease exploratory behavior, take rest, and stop feeding. The signals of hunger or satiety and their effects on physiology and behavior will depend not only on the animal's current nutritional status, but also on its experience and the environment in which the animal evolved. In our novel, nutritionally rich environment, improper control of appetite contributes to diseases from anorexia to the current epidemic of obesity. Despite extraordinary recent advances, genetic contribution to appetite control is still poorly understood partly due to lack of simple genetic model systems. In this review, we will discuss current understanding of molecular and cellular mechanisms by which animals regulate food intake depending on their nutritional status. Then, focusing on relatively less known muscarinic and cGMP signals, we will discuss how the molecular and behavioral aspects of hunger and satiety are conserved in a simple invertebrate model system, Caenorhabditis elegans so as for us to use it to understand the genetics of appetite control.
KW - Caenorhabditis elegans
KW - appetite control
KW - cGMP
KW - food intake
KW - muscarinic signaling
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U2 - 10.1080/19768354.2012.716791
DO - 10.1080/19768354.2012.716791
M3 - Review article
C2 - 23330056
AN - SCOPUS:84868235995
SN - 1976-8354
VL - 16
SP - 351
EP - 356
JO - Animal Cells and Systems
JF - Animal Cells and Systems
IS - 5
ER -