Synonyms
Historical Background
Galanin is a 29 amino acids (30 amino acids in human) long neuroendocrine peptide, originally isolated from porcine upper intestine in 1983 (Tatemoto et al. 1983). Subsequently, galanin was found to be expressed widely in brain and peripheral tissues. Galanin triggers cellular responses by binding to specific galanin receptors, and then the signals are transduced into intracellular effectors via G proteins. So far, there are three receptors (GalR1, GalR2, GalR3) were cloned (Branchek et al. 2000), and all of them are G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCR). The three receptors have substantial difference in their functional coupling and subsequent signaling activities, which contributes to the diversity of possible physiological effects of galanin. Galanin receptors can be found throughout the peripheral and central nervous systems (CNS) and the endocrine system, and they can regulate numerous physiological process such as...
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Acknowledgments
This work was supported by Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University to Zhenhui Liu (No. NCET-08-0501), the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) of China (No.2008AA092603 and 2008AA09Z409) and the Scientific Research Foundation for the Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars, State Education Ministry (No. 2009–1001).
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Liu, Z., Li, L., Zhang, M. (2018). GALR, Galanin Receptor. In: Choi, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Signaling Molecules. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67199-4_462
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67199-4_462
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