Regulation of food intake and body weight by cobalt porphyrins in animals. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • Cobalt-substituted protoporphyrin administered subcutaneously to normal adult rats elicited prompt decreases in food intake and sustained decreases in body weight. Repetitive parenteral administration of small doses of this synthetic heme analogue resulted in dose-related diminutions of carcass fat content without changes in carcass protein content. Direct injection of the compound into the third ventricle of the brain produced changes in food intake and body weight that were quantitatively similar to those observed after parenteral treatment but required only 1-2% of the parenteral dose. The effects of intracerebroventricularly administered cobalt protoporphyrin on body weight were dose-related and were not produced by inorganic cobalt, heme, and a number of other metal-substituted protoporphyrins. Differential body weights between control and treated animals persisted for at least 300 days after intracerebroventricular injections of a single dose (0.2 or 0.4 mumol/kg of body weight) of the compound. Similar effects were observed after subcutaneous administration of the metalloporphyrin to genetically obese Zucker (fa/fa) rats and normal and genetically obese (ob/ob) mice as well as chickens and dogs. Cobalt-substituted mesoporphyrin elicited comparable effects on food intake and body weight. The results of these studies define a new biological action of cobalt protoporphyrin and demonstrate that this and certain other cobalt porphyrins can act, at least in part, in the central nervous system to regulate appetite and to produce long-sustained diminutions in body weight and carcass content of fat in animals.

publication date

  • October 1, 1989

Research

keywords

  • Body Weight
  • Cerebral Ventricles
  • Cobalt
  • Feeding Behavior
  • Porphyrins
  • Protoporphyrins

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC298125

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 0024404072

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1073/pnas.86.19.7653

PubMed ID

  • 2798429

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 86

issue

  • 19