Insulin action in the brain is known to inhibit food intake. Now Leona Plum and her colleagues show that in hypothalamic neurons insulin inhibits FoxO1-mediated transcriptional repression of Cpe, a gene that encodes a carboxypeptidase that is required for proper processing of key anorexigenic neuropeptides. The team also found that this pathway is disturbed in states of diet-induced obesity, suggesting that obesity-induced insulin resistance may affect obesity even further.
- Leona Plum
- Hua V Lin
- Domenico Accili
