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Molecular and Cellular Biology, November 2003, p. 7973-7981, Vol. 23, No. 22
0270-7306/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/MCB.23.22.7973-7981.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Deletion of Ghrelin Impairs neither Growth nor Appetite

Yuxiang Sun, Saira Ahmed, and Roy G. Smith*

Huffington Center on Aging, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas 77030

Received 19 May 2003/ Accepted 23 July 2003

Pharmacological studies show that ghrelin stimulates growth hormone release, appetite, and fat deposition, but ghrelin's physiological role in energy homeostasis has not been established. Ghrelin was also proposed to regulate leptin and insulin release and to be important for the normal function of stomach, heart, kidney, lung, testis, and placenta. To help determine a definable physiological role for ghrelin, we generated ghrelin-null mice. In contrast to predictions made from the pharmacology of ghrelin, ghrelin-null mice are not anorexic dwarfs; their size, growth rate, food intake, body composition, reproduction, gross behavior, and tissue pathology are indistinguishable from wild-type littermates. Fasting produces identical decreases in serum leptin and insulin in null and wild-type mice. Ghrelin-null mice display normal responses to starvation and diet-induced obesity. As in wild-type mice, the administration of exogenous ghrelin stimulates appetite in null mice. Our data show that ghrelin is not critically required for viability, fertility, growth, appetite, bone density, and fat deposition and not likely to be a direct regulator of leptin and insulin. Therefore, antagonists of ghrelin are unlikely to have broad utility as antiobesity agents.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Huffington Center on Aging, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, M320, Houston, TX 77030. Phone: (713) 798-3837. Fax: (713) 798-1610. E-mail: rsmith{at}bcm.tmc.edu.

Molecular and Cellular Biology, November 2003, p. 7973-7981, Vol. 23, No. 22
0022-538X/03/$08.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/MCB.23.22.7973-7981.2003
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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