Sleep, Mood & Stress
CART (Cocaine- and Amphetamine-Regulated Transcript)
CART stands for cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcript, a name that records the experiment that turned it up rather than anything it does. What it does is suppress appetite: it is released by the same hypothalamic neurons that respond to leptin, the fullness hormone, and the 1998 paper describing that has been cited more than a thousand times. Nearly three decades on, the receptor it acts through has still not been identified, which is why nobody has built a drug from it. Every study on file is a cell or animal experiment bar one, which compared blood levels in 44 people with Graves' disease against matched controls.
Last updated
Mechanism
Released by arcuate POMC/CART neurons under leptin control; suppresses food intake through a receptor still unidentified.
Reported effects
What sources associate with this compound. Reported categories, not outcomes we have graded — each would need its own citation and rung.
- Appetite regulation research
- Energy balance marker
- Reward signalling context
Dosing on file unverified
No established human dose; preclinical only
Carried from a source that labels it unverified, and reproduced with that label attached. A record of what is reported, not a recommendation. No citation on this page establishes it.
Literature on file 6
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animal in vivo
Hypothalamic CART is a new anorectic peptide regulated by leptin (1998, cited 1023x) graded on: an animal model — read from the indexed abstract — “rats”
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review or editorial
Cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcript (CART) peptides: Neuroanatomical distribution and functional implications in the mammalian central nervous system. graded on: indexed as "Review" - secondary literature, not a study — “Review”
- animal in vivo
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animal in vivo
Cocaine- and amphetamine-regulated transcripts in two percomorphs: evolutionary conservation and energy-status dependent responses. graded on: tilapia and seabream, energy-status dependent expression — read from the abstract — “abstract review”
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animal in vivo
Sex differences in the expression of GnRH regulators in the preoptic area of guinea pigs. graded on: an animal model — “pigs”
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human observational
Serum Cocaine- and Amphetamine-Regulated Transcript (CART) Levels in Graves' Disease: Associations with Metabolic Status, Autoimmunity, and Thyroid Ultrasound Heterogeneity. graded on: an observational human design — read from the indexed abstract — “prospective study”
Identity
- UniProt
- Q16568 (precursor)
Also called
- Cocaine- and Amphetamine-Regulated Transcript (CART)
Notes unverified prose
No controlled human clinical trials; all evidence is preclinical (cell culture and animal models); No controlled human trials; preclinical only
Not on file 10
8 of the 8 fields we track hold nothing on this record, and each says why. 2 further absences are named below. A blank field is a bug; a named absence is a finding.
- molecular weightnothing we hold supplies it
- molecular formulanothing we hold supplies it
- CAS registry numbernothing we hold supplies it
- PubChem identifiernothing we hold supplies it
- amino-acid sequencenothing we hold supplies it
- SMILES stringnothing we hold supplies it
- InChInothing we hold supplies it
- InChI keynothing we hold supplies it
- half-lifenothing we hold supplies it
- route of administrationnot applicable to this compound
Each field links to every other record missing the same thing. The full ledger holds 765 gaps across 163 records.