Lipotropin

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proopiomelanocortin (adrenocorticotropin/ beta-lipotropin/ alpha-melanocyte stimulating hormone/ beta-melanocyte stimulating hormone/ beta-endorphin)
Identifiers
Symbol POMC
Entrez 5443
HUGO 9201
OMIM 176830
RefSeq NM_000939
UniProt P01189
Other data
Locus Chr. 2 p23

Lipotropin is a hormone produced by the cleavage of pro-opiomelanocortin (POMC). The anterior pituitary gland produces the pro-hormone POMC, which undergoes cleavage to adrenocorticotropin (ACTH) and β-lipotropin (β-LPH).

Contents

[edit] Beta-lipotropin

β-lipotropin is a 90 amino acid polypeptide that is the carboxy-terminal fragment of POMC.

It stimulates melanocytes to produce melanin, and can also be cleaved into smaller peptides. In humans, γ-lipotropin, α-MSH, β-MSH, γ-MSH, α-endorphin, β-endorphin, γ-endorphin, and met-enkephalin are all possible fragments of β-lipotropin.[1]

β-lipotropin also performs lipid-mobilizing functions such as lipolysis and steroidogenesis.

[edit] Gamma-lipotropin

γ-lipotropin is the amino-terminal peptide fragment of β-lipotropin. In humans, it has 56 amino acids.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Joachim Spiess, Charles D. Mount, Wendell E. Nicholson, David N. Orth (1982), "NH2-Terminal amino acid sequence and peptide mapping of purified human β-lipotropin: Comparison with previously proposed sequences", Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 79: 5071-5, <http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=346829&blobtype=pdf>. Retrieved on 21 June 2007
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