ULK1 and obesity due to melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency: Moreover, our results showed that MR abolished obesity-induced variations in splenic autophagy-related parameters: (1) elevated splenic LC3BII/LC3BI and beclin1 protein expression levels; (2) declined splenic p62 protein expression levels; (3) up-regulated splenic LC3B, ATG4b, ATG5, ATG7, ATG12, beclin1, ULK1, Lamp2α, and Gabarap gene expression levels.