| Popis: |
Neuropeptides are neuronal messengers which occur throughout the animal kingdom in a great molecular diversity. In recent years the molecular structure and gene coding of a number of neuropeptides of invertebrates has been elucidated. It appears from this data that we can distinguish some families of neuropeptides which occur in various groups of invertebrates as well as in vertebrates. These peptides, therefore, have an extremely long evolutionary history, up to 600 million years. As examples of these peptides we discuss here insulin and insulin-related peptides, the FMRFamide family, the head activator peptide and the vasopressin/vasotocin family. |
