Protein of the Day #15: Adropin

Recently in Cell Metabolism there was a very interesting article on the newly characterized peptide Adropin. Adropin seems quite important in regulating the balance between sugar and lipid use as fuels; its one of several promising avenues to understanding and treating diabetes that have come out in the last year or two. The peptide is cleaved from the product of the gene Enho (energy homoestasis associated). Its extremely well conserved in mammals - for most species the amino acid sequence is 100% identical (a few ungulates have 1 amino acid difference). Here is a picture of the conservation from UCSC's genome browser: