AgRP Neurons Are Not Indispensable for Body Weight Maintenance in Adult Mice

Authors

Jing Cai
Jing Chen
Joshua Ortiz-Guzman
Jessica Huang
Benjamin R Arenkiel
Yuchen Wang
Yan Zhang
Yuyan Shi
Qingchun Tong
Cheng Zhan

Publication Date

7-25-2023

Journal

Cell Reports

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

Mice, Animals, Agouti-Related Protein, Body Weight Maintenance, Arcuate Nucleus of Hypothalamus, Weight Loss, Neurons, Body Weight

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Associated Data

PMID: 37422762