Expression plasmid for the leptin receptor (LRb) was a gift from Dr. Martin G. Myers Jr. The luciferase reporter plasmid containing sequence from the mouse CART promoter spanning −641 to +30 was kindly provided by Dr. Michael J. Kuhar 31. The KISS1 luciferase reporter was generated by cloning the human KISS1 promoter spanning −1132 to +1, into pGL2 (Promega). The EVX-1 luciferase reporter and TORC1 expression constructs have been described previously 8. The S151A TORC1 expression construct was generated by site-directed mutagenesis. Lentiviruses encoding U6 promoter-driven interfering RNAs directed against the TORC1 sequence, 5′-GGTCCCTGCCCAACGTGAAC-3′, were generated as described previously 12. Forskolin (Sigma), A23187 (Calbiochem), leptin (R and D Systems), and MTII (Bachem) were purchased from the respective manufacturers.
