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Turtle ghrelin

Nature Genetics volume 46, pages 525–526 (2014)Cite this article

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To the Editor:

In a recent paper, Wang and colleagues described the genomes of two turtles, the Chinese soft-shell turtle (Pelodiscus sinensis) and the green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas)1. A salient finding was an apparent absence of GHRL, the gene encoding the only known circulating orexigen, the peptide hormone ghrelin. The highly conserved GHRL encodes at least two bioactive peptide hormones, ghrelin2 and obestatin3, which are recognized to have a diverse range of functions in a number of cell types and physiological systems4,5. Wang and colleagues hypothesized that the absence of ghrelin was associated with the low metabolic rate observed in these turtle species1.

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Figure 1: The GHRL gene encoding ghrelin is intact in turtles.

References

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge financial support from the National Health and Medical Research Council (Australia).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ghrelin Research Group, Translational Research Institute–Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Woolloongabba, Queensland, Australia

    Inge Seim, Penny L Jeffery, Adrian C Herington & Lisa K Chopin

  2. Australian Prostate Cancer Research Centre–Queensland, Queensland University of Technology and Princess Alexandra Hospital, Woolloongabba, Queensland, Australia

    Inge Seim, Penny L Jeffery, Adrian C Herington & Lisa K Chopin

Authors
  1. Inge Seim
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  2. Penny L Jeffery
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  3. Adrian C Herington
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  4. Lisa K Chopin
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lisa K Chopin.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Supplementary Note, Supplementary Figure 1 and Supplementary Table 1 (PDF 2094 kb)

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Seim, I., Jeffery, P., Herington, A. et al. Turtle ghrelin. Nat Genet 46, 525–526 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.2964

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