Dr. Nio from Pharmacology BU to Present a Poster at ObesityWeek® 2025

2025.10.24

Dr. Yasunori Nio from the Pharmacology Business Unit, will deliver a poster presentation at ObesityWeek® 2025, to be held in Atlanta, GA, USA.
If you plan to attend the conference, we encourage you to join the session and hear the presentation.

Conference Name: ObesityWeek® 2025

Date & Time: November 6, 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm

Location: Atlanta, GA, USA

Title: Anti-Obese Effects of GLP-1 Related Peptides on MC4R Deficient Mice and Nauseous Experiment Systems

Poster number: Poster-715

Presentation Summary
Diet-induced obesity (DIO) mice are widely used to evaluate anti-obesity drugs; however, obesity development requires about 20 weeks of high-fat feeding, delaying pharmacological assessment. Melanocortin-4 receptor (MC4R) knockout mice exhibit marked obesity from around 10 weeks of age compared with wild-type mice and serve as a genetic model suitable for short-term evaluation. In this study, we compared the anti-obesity effects of GLP-1 analogs—semaglutide, tirzepatide, and retatrutide—in MC4R-deficient mice to assess whether their efficacy parallels clinical outcomes. Body weight reduction followed the order tirzepatide > retatrutide > semaglutide, accompanied by decreased muscle mass, consistent with clinical reports. These results indicate that MC4R-deficient mice provide a time-efficient and clinically translatable model for anti-obesity drug evaluation.
GLP-1 analogs exert potent anti-obesity effects but frequently cause nausea and vomiting. Because rodents lack a vomiting reflex, conventional models cannot evaluate such adverse effects. We therefore established a complementary system in normal mice and rats using conditioned taste aversion, salivary amylase secretion, delayed gastric emptying, and pica behavior as surrogate indices. This system successfully detected nausea- and emesis-like responses. Collectively, these findings demonstrate that our integrated evaluation approach enhances both pharmacological efficacy and safety assessment in preclinical anti-obesity drug development.

Axcelead DDP’s Soulution
Beyond MC4R-deficient mice, ADDP has many other models and evaluation indices. We also have many researchers with over 20 years of experience in the field of metabolic diseases, allowing us to propose and accelerate optimal drug discovery research tailored to the target and symptoms. We can quickly prepare gene-deficient mice to determine whether a drug is effective on target. By combining pathology and Omics technologies, we can also perform MOA, pathological analysis, and safety evaluation. If you have any questions about your drug discovery research, please feel free to contact us.