| Popis: |
Publisher Summary The gastrointestinal (GI) tract is central to the process of eating. This organ plays a vital role in promoting the sensation of hunger, while helping other parts of the body to cope with the intake of nutrients ingested during a meal, and simultaneously providing defense against accidental ingestion of toxins (emesis, diarrhea) and playing a key role in immune protection. The hormones released during fasting tend to promote appetite and gastric motility, and exert different metabolic actions that include orexin, ghrelin and motilin. This chapter describes the advances in motilin biology that have important implications in terms of providing feedback to medicinal chemistry with translational value. The potential therapeutic utility of new drugs acting as agonists or as antagonists at the motilin receptor is then discussed, with emphasis on the better understood use of the motilin receptor agonists. |
