Function, distribution and molecular pharmacology of NPY-family receptors

The more we study the NPY family of receptors, the more functions are assigned to them. Developments of knockout animals and receptor selective antagonists have revealed several novel functions of the NPY-family receptors. However, the complete picture of what receptor is responsible for a particular function is still illusive, perhaps due to the large degree of redundancy in the NPY peptides and receptors. Double or conditional knockout animals will no doubt become valuable tools here [211, 212]. In addition, developmental compensation to the loss of NPY or Y receptors is poorly understood and this may account for some of the phenotypes or lack thereof observed in behavioral studies.