Recent developments in the discovery of melanin-concentrating hormone antagonists: novel antiobesity agents

Abstract

The discovery in the mid 1990s that melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH) is a strong appetite stimulant has led to a rapid increase in interest in this peptide. Significant evidence now exists establishing the key role that MCH plays in controlling food intake and energy homeostasis. Interest was further heightened by the discovery of two G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) that were bound to, and activated by, MCH. Of these two receptors, only one, the MCH1 receptor, is expressed in rodents and as a result most of the efforts to identify MCH antagonists have focused on this receptor. Significant medicinal chemistry programmes from a number of companies have produced a variety of drug-like, low molecular weight MCH antagonists, a number of which have shown highly promising efficacy in a variety of animal models of food intake and body weight.

• energy homeostasis
• GPR24
• melanin-concentrating hormone (MCH)
• MCH1R
• obesity
• SLC-1