Leptin is a protein hormone secreted by adipose tissue. It is generally believed that it will participate in the regulation of sugar, fat and energy metabolism after entering the blood circulation, prompting the body to reduce food intake, increase energy release, inhibit the synthesis of fat cells, and then achieve the purpose of losing weight. Mainly produced by white adipose tissue. Its precursor consists of 167 amino acid residues, and there is a signal peptide with 2 1 amino acid residues at the n-terminal. The signal peptide of the precursor is cut into 146 amino acids in blood, and the molecular weight is 16KD, forming leptin. Leptin has a wide range of biological effects, the most important of which is the metabolic regulation center of hypothalamus, which can inhibit appetite, reduce energy intake, increase energy consumption and inhibit fat synthesis. Studies have shown that the rats encoding the gene ob and lacking the ob gene have a strong appetite and obviously increase their weight, which leads to morbid obesity. Its concentration in the body makes the brain know the current amount of fat on the body, thus controlling appetite and metabolic rate.

Leptin can enhance the activity of another hormone-melanocyte stimulating hormone α-melanocortin stimulating hormone (α-MSH) by inhibiting the activity of AgRP related to neuropeptide Y (NPY) in vivo. With the in-depth discussion of leptin since 2000, people began to realize that leptin is not only secreted by adipose tissue, but also detected in other tissues, such as breast epithelial cells, placenta and gastric mucosal epithelial cells. Its receptors not only exist in thalamus and adipose tissue, but also widely exist in all tissues of the whole body. The pathophysiological relationship between leptin and body system is gradually being understood. Douglas gherman and Jeffrey Friedman, leptin and obesity scientists from the United States, devoted themselves to related research in 1960s and 1980s, and finally successfully solved this scientific mystery. As a result, they became the winners of the Shaw Prize for Life Science and Medicine, known as the Oriental Nobel Prize, and * * * won a prize of $ 654.38+0 million. As early as 1960s, gherman, who works in Jackson Laboratory in Maine, USA, put forward a scientific conjecture that weight is closely related to the genes of organisms after participating in the experiments of diabetes and weight in mice. In the interview, he recalled that he began to study two kinds of mice that were severely obese due to gene mutation. Results It was successfully found that some mice were obese because they could not produce some appetite-suppressing hormones, while others produced excessive related hormones. However, due to the lack of receptors to receive hormone information, they become obese.