S25
Discovery of New Hormones and Functions:
From Comparative to General
Organizers:
Kazuyoshi Tsutsui (Waseda Univ., Japan)
Hubert Vaudry (Univ. Rouen, France)
Comparative studies are generally recognized to be performed by researchers who love a specific group of animals. However, these studies have a potential to contribute more generally to other animals groups or throughout animal kingdom as all extant animals are related with each other via a history of evolution that is imprinted in their genome. Therefore, this symposium provides an excellent opportunity to introduce how much comparative studies can satisfy the interest of wide range of researchers even that of clinical researchers. We select six researchers who are world leaders in comparative endocrinology and identified new hormones in various vertebrate species or new functions of known hormones by way of comparative studies using physiological, biochemical and genomic techniques. We believe that this symposium will add value to the ICCPB2011 by introducing the importance of comparative studies from an endocrinological discipline and attract attention of many researchers in the field of comparative physiology and biochemistry. This symposium is supported by the Japan Society for Comparative Endocrinology (JSCE).
Speakers:
1) Hubert Vaudry (Univ. Rouen, France)
Identification and functional characterization of novel neuropeptides: from frogs to humans
2) Kazuyoshi Tsutsui (Waseda Univ., Japan)
Discovery and evolutionary history of gonadotropin-inhibitory hormone (GnIH), a new key neuropeptide controlling reproduction
3) Jae Young Seong (Korea Univ., Korea)
Molecular co-evolution of kisspeptins and GPR54s
4) Billy Chow (Univ. Hong Kong, China)
Analysis of VPAC and secretin receptors in vertebrates: its implications on molecular and functional evolution of the secretin receptor family
5) Yoshio Takei (Univ. Tokyo, Japan)
Reverse phylogenetic approach to discovery of novel adrenomedullins in mammals
6) Honoo Satake (Suntory Inst. for Bioorganic Res., Japan)
Homologous and unique structures and functions of ascidian peptidic signaling molecules