The pineal hormone melatonin participates in circadian, seasonal, and reproductive physiology. The presence of melatonin binding sites in human brain and peripheral tissues is well documented. However, in the mammalian adrenal gland, low-affinity melatonin binding sites have been detected only in the rat by some but not all authors. Conflicting evidence for a regulatory role of melatonin on adr...

Background Melatonin (N-acetyl-5- methoxytryptamine) is mainly synthesized and secreted in the pineal gland, ovary, testes, bone marrow, retina and lens in mammalian species. It is involved in the detoxification of ROS and protects embryos from oxidative damage. Melatonin acts as a potential free radical scavenger, including peroxyl radical and hydroxyl radical. In addition, it can stimulate th...

objective: the goals of the study are evaluation the effect(s) of food deprivation as a social stress on testis structure. we also investigated the effects of melatonin treatment as an antioxidant component and inequality on the effect(s) of food deprivation. methods: we investigated the improving effects of melatonin and social stress (food deprivation) on 42 male rats in 7 groups including co...

Recent studies have revealed that melatonin exerts strong anti-apoptotic effects. Retina secretes melatonin, and melatonin receptors are distributed in almost all the layers of retina, including the layer of retinal pigment epithelial (RPE) cells. However, it is not known whether melatonin inhibits apoptosis through its anti-oxidant effects and how it works in RPE cells. Here, we show that mela...

Melatonin, a pineal hormone, because of its wide activity spectrum, is a subject of much current interest for biologists and physicians. It has been demonstrated that pineal gland is not an exclusive source of melatonin synthesis. Melatonin synthesis has been found in different sites of the organism, and a major source of extrapineal melatonin is the gastrointestinal tract. The role of melatoni...

Melatonin (N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine) plays important roles in regulating both biotic and abiotic stress tolerance, biological rhythms, plant growth and development. Sharing the same substrate (tryptophan) for the biosynthesis, melatonin and auxin also have similar effects in plant development. However, the specific function of melatonin in modulating plant root growth and the relationship b...

Leptin and melatonin play an important role in the regulation of body mass and energy balance. Both hormones show a circadian rhythm, with increasing values at night. In addition, melatonin receptors were recently described in adipocytes, where leptin is synthesized. Here, we investigated the influence of melatonin and its interaction with insulin and dexamethasone on leptin expression. Isolate...

BACKGROUND The nocturnal endogenous melatonin rise, which is associated with the onset of sleep propensity, is absent in haemodialysis patients. Information on melatonin rhythms in chronic kidney disease (CKD) is limited. Clear relationships exist between melatonin, core body temperature and cortisol in healthy subjects. In CKD, no data are available on these relationships. The objective of the...

Prenatal dexamethasone (DEX) exposure and high-fat (HF) intake are linked to hypertension. We examined whether maternal melatonin therapy prevents programmed hypertension synergistically induced by prenatal DEX plus postnatal HF in adult offspring. We also examined whether DEX and melatonin causes renal programming using next-generation RNA sequencing (NGS) technology. Pregnant Sprague-Dawley r...

Melatonin is a pineal hormone produced at night; however, many strains of laboratory mice are deficient in melatonin. Strangely enough, the gene encoding HIOMT enzyme (also known as ASMT) that catalyzes the last step of melatonin synthesis is still unidentified in the house mouse (Mus musculus) despite the completion of the genome sequence. Here we report the identification of the mouse Hiomt g...