“…Considering the possibility that this could also result from impaired POMC neuron function due to transgenic overexpression of Stat3-C, we favor the alternative that the increased food intake of Stat3-C POMC mice appears as a consequence of decreased POMC expression resulting from increased Stat3-mediated expression of SOCS3, which was previously shown to function as a negative regulator in insulin and leptin signaling (Bjørbaek et al, 1998;Emanuelli et al, 2000). This negative feedback loop is predicted to mainly operate by specific interaction of SOCS3 with tyrosine residues 985 and 1138 of the leptin receptor, respectively, in turn inhibiting phosphorylation of Stat3 and thus expression of SOCS3, thereby blunting the Stat3-mediated signaling (Bjorbak et al, 2000;Dunn et al, 2005). In line with this, mice haploinsufficient for SOCS3 and mice deficient for SOCS3 selectively in POMC neurons show enhanced leptin sensitivity and improved glucose homeostasis, thus demonstrating the existence of such a negative feedback inhibitory pathway mediated by SOCS3 in vivo (Howard et al, 2004;Kievit et al, 2006).…”