Patent ID: 7122520

Claim:
A method of enhancing the appetitc of a subject, comprising administering to the subject an effective amount of agouti related transcrint (ART) polypeptide selected from The group consisting of: (a) the polypeptide comprising the sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:7; (b) the polypeptide comprising the sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NQ:8; (c) the polypeptide comprising the sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO:10; (d) the polypeptide comprising the sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO: 11; (e) a polypeptide having at least 80 percent sequence identity with the polypeptide of any of (a)–(d) as calculated using the algorithm FASTA with its default parameters and the scoring matrix PAM 250, wherein the polypeptide having at least 80 percent sequence identity increases food intake in said subject.