G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) transduce physiological and sensory stimuli into appropriate cellular responses and mediate the actions of one-third of drugs. Structures of GPCRs are therefore extremely valuable for understanding basic receptor function and rational drug design. Today, 310 structures of 59 distinct receptors (https://gpcrdb.org/structure/statistics) have revealed the general bases of receptor activation, signalling, drug action and allosteric modulation. However, there are still no structures for the vast majority – 85% – of the 398 non-olfactory GPCRs and for 52% structure models can only be based on low-homology templates.
To accelerate the determination of GPCR structures and to help assess the quality of the available templates based on the modifications and methods, a recent article in Nature Methods presents “An Online Resource for GPCR Structure Determination and Analysis” [1]. This surveyes the construct engineering and experimental methods and reagens used to produce all available GPCR crystal and cryo-EM structures. Furthermore, it describes and interactive resource integrated in GPCRdb (www.gpcrdb.org) to assist users in designing new constructs and browsing appropriate experimental conditions for structure studies.
Comments by David E. Gloriam, University of Copenhagen (@David_Gloriam)
(1) Munk C et al. (2019). An online resource for GPCR structure determination and analysis. J Med Chem, doi:10.1038/s41592-018-0302-x. [PMID:30664776]
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