A Cardiovascular Disease-Linked Gut Microbial Metabolite Acts via Adrenergic Receptors.

Class A G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) influence virtually every aspect of human physiology. Understanding receptor activation mechanism is critical for discovering novel therapeutics since about one-third of all marketed drugs target members of this family. GPCR activation is an allosteric process that couples agonist binding to G-protein recruitment, with the hallmark outward movement of transmembrane helix 6 (TM6). However, what leads to TM6 movement and the key residue level changes of this movement remain less well understood. Here, we report a framework to quantify conformational changes. By analyzing the conformational changes in 234 structures from 45 class A GPCRs, we discovered a common GPCR activation pathway comprising of 34 residue pairs and 35 residues. The pathway unifies previous findings into a common activation mechanism and strings together the scattered key motifs such as CWxP, DRY, Na+ pocket, NPxxY and PIF, thereby directly linking the bottom of ligand-binding pocket with G-protein coupling region. Site-directed mutagenesis experiments support this proposition and reveal that rational mutations of residues in this pathway can be used to obtain receptors that are constitutively active or inactive. The common activation pathway provides the mechanistic interpretation of constitutively activating, inactivating and disease mutations. As a module responsible for activation, the common pathway allows for decoupling of the evolution of the ligand binding site and G-protein-binding region. Such an architecture might have facilitated GPCRs to emerge as a highly successful family of proteins for signal transduction in nature.

Common activation mechanism of class A GPCRs.

A history of farm animal embryo transfer and some associated techniques

Imaging Neurotransmitter and Neuromodulator Dynamics In Vivo with Genetically Encoded Indicators.

Structural insights into the human D1 and D2 dopamine receptor signaling complexes.

Salmeterol is a partial agonist for the β2 adrenergic receptor (β2AR) and the first long-acting β2AR agonist to be widely used clinically for the treatment of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Salmeterol's safety and mechanism of action have both been controversial. To understand its unusual pharmacological action and partial agonism, we obtained the crystal structure of salmeterol-bound β2AR in complex with an active-state-stabilizing nanobody. The structure reveals the location of the salmeterol exosite, where sequence differences between β1AR and β2AR explain the high receptor-subtype selectivity. A structural comparison with the β2AR bound to the full agonist epinephrine reveals differences in the hydrogen-bond network involving residues Ser2045.43 and Asn2936.55. Mutagenesis and biophysical studies suggested that these interactions lead to a distinct active-state conformation that is responsible for the partial efficacy of G-protein activation and the limited β-arrestin recruitment for salmeterol.

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Structural insights into binding specificity, efficacy and bias of a beta2AR partial agonist.

6 – The Micromanipulation of Farm Animal Embryos

In the version of this paper originally published, the structure for epinephrine shown in Figure 1a was redrawn with an extra carbon. The structure has been replaced in the HTML and PDF versions of the article. The original and corrected versions of the structure are shown below.

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Louis Picard

Papers

Structural insights into binding specificity, efficacy and bias of a beta2AR partial agonist.

6 – The Micromanipulation of Farm Animal Embryos

Publisher Correction: Structural insights into binding specificity, efficacy and bias of a β 2 AR partial agonist

Mapping the conformational landscape of the stimulatory heterotrimeric G protein

Measuring the rupture force between adenosine A2A G-protein coupled receptors and G-proteins using axial optical tweezers.