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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor 2 Activation: Computational Predictions and Experimental Validation

Ellaithy, Amr 01 January 2018 (has links)
G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the largest family of signaling proteins in animals and represent the largest family of druggable targets in the human genome. Therefore, it is of no surprise that the molecular mechanisms of GPCR activation and signal transduction have attracted close attention for the past few decades. Several stabilizing interactions within the GPCR transmembrane (TM) domain helices regulate receptor activation. An example is a salt bridge between 2 highly conserved amino acids at the bottom of TM3 and TM6 that has been characterized for a large number of GPCRs. Through structural modeling and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, we predicted several electrostatic interactions to be involved in metabotropic glutamate receptor 2 (mGlu2R) activation. To experimentally test these predictions, we employed a charge reversal mutagenesis approach to disrupt predicted receptor electrostatic intramolecular interactions as well as intermolecular interactions between the receptor and G proteins. Using two electrode voltage clamp in Xenopus laevis oocytes expressing mutant receptors and G-proteins, we revealed novel electrostatic interactions, mostly located around intracellular loops 2 and 3 of mGlu2R, that are critical for both receptor and G-protein activation. These studies contribute to elucidating the molecular determinants of mGluRs activation and conformational coupling to G-proteins, and can likely be extended to include other classes of GPCRs.

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