Talk:Melanocortins and appetite

1. Jessica Ivy 13:13, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
2. Ruth Callaghan 13:14, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
3. Cadi M. J. Irvine 13:16, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
4. Lisa L Hutchison 16:21, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Hello. here is a link to an article- haven't read it yet but looks like a nice intro to the glamorous world of melanocortins:

[1] article 1

Jessica Ivy 13:49, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Jessica, remember to use the Bibliography page for references. Please write the whole ref with author names, year, title, journal, vol, and PubMed link if available.

Nancy Sabatier 17:02, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Related articles

You'll see that on the Related articles subpage I've placed links to all the articles from the other groups this year - and also to last year's articles. Good luck with this.Gareth Leng 16:01, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi guys, your reference list needs to be developped a bit more, have a look at what the other group have done, it'll give you an idea of how much they already put in. Also, you should start thinking about your introduction and plan for your main article. Nancy Sabatier 16:31, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

The plan looks sensible; you do need to keep a sharp eye out for key experimental studies; I'd suggest that you use the bibliography page to capture key details of experimental studies of particular significance; whether and how you incorporate those in the main article you can decide later. Without more detail and seeing what you're doing I can't give any better feedback at this stage.Gareth Leng 14:29, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Cadi, if you look at the Mountjoy article (link to it in bibliog) there's quite an interesting bit about the fact that they've not developed specific melanocortin knock out mice. so there are some ideas for future directions etc there. Jessica Ivy 20:29, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

This article is starting to take shape. Good! Though I agree with Nancy that the scope of reading should be increased to encompass original research papers. Watch out for your spelling and make sure you are consistent with terms that might be unfamiliar to the lay reader; AGRP v. AgRP, for example. The latter is more commonly used. John Menzies 12:41, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Detail

One of the important things that you can learn from writing an encyclopedia article is strict attention to detail; you have to be sparing in what you write and strictly accurate. The same things count in exams. For example, look at the following

"The melanocortin system is the name collectively given for;

• Neurons arising in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus, and express AgRP,NPY or POMC.
• POMC neurons that project to the brainstem
• Melanocortin receptors, predominately MC3R and MC4R that respond to POMC peptides and AgRP."

Several things here almost right but not quite, or ambiguous so it's not clear that you've got it right or not.

1. 'collectively given': what does collectively mean here?
2. NPY is not a melanocortin, although it co-exists with AgRP which is an inverse agonist at the MC4 receptor. It's just misleading to mention NPY here.
3. POMC neurons that project to the brainstem; well actually the hypothalamus is part of the brainstem, so strictly you probably mean the caudal brainstem, but in fact I here you are talking about the POMC neurones that are in the caudal brainstem rather than those in the arcuate nucleus.
4. All melanocortin receptors "respond" to some POMC products - I think here you're suggesting that MC3 and MC4 are the predominant melanocortin receptors in brain - needs a reference I think.
5. melanocortin receptors only bind some POMC products - they do not bind opioids for example
6. we wouldn't really say that receptors respond to anything - they bind, they are activated by etc
7. you haven't actually mentioned alpha MSH here - the key melanocortin.

Gareth Leng 14:08, 2 November 2010 (UTC)