Intracerebroventricular administration of chicken oxyntomodulin suppresses food intake and increases plasma glucose and corticosterone concentrations in chicks.

Central administration of proglucagon-derived peptides, glucagon, glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), and oxyntomodulin (OXM), suppresses food intake in both mammals and birds. Recent findings suggest that GLP-1 receptor is involved in the anorexigenic action of OXM in both species. However, mammalian (bovine) OXM was used in chicken studies, even though the amino acid sequence and peptide length of chicken OXM differ from those of bovine OXM. In the present study, we examined the effect of chicken OXM on food intake and plasma components in chicks to investigate the mechanisms underlying the OXM effect. Male 8-day-old chicks (Gallus gallus domesticus) were used in all experiments. Intracerebroventricular administration of chicken OXM significantly suppressed food intake in chicks. Plasma concentrations of glucose and corticosterone were significantly increased by chicken OXM. These phenomena were also observed after bovine OXM injection in chicks. In contrast, central administration of chicken GLP-1 significantly decreased plasma glucose concentration and did not affect plasma corticosterone concentration. We previously showed that central administration of chicken glucagon significantly increased plasma concentrations of glucose and corticosterone in chicks. All our findings suggest that the mechanism underlying the anorexigenic action of OXM is similar to that of glucagon in chicks.