Most of these studies have targeted the extensively studied APOBEC-mediated C-to-U editing event that occurs in mammalian APOBEC1 mRNA, revealing the influence of ethanol intake (Lau et al. 1995; Van Mater et al. 1998), insulin (von Wronski et al. 1998), obesity (Phung et al. 1996), and diet (Funahashi et al. 1995) on APOBEC1 mRNA editing levels. The gene discussed is APOBEC1; the disease is obesity due to melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency.