scholarly journals An Efficient Strategy to Estimate Thermodynamics and Kinetics of G Protein-Coupled Receptor Activation Using Metadynamics and Maximum Caliber

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derya Meral ◽  
Davide Provasi ◽  
Marta Filizola

ABSTRACTComputational strategies aimed at unveiling the thermodynamic and kinetic properties of G Protein-Coupled Receptor (GPCR) activation require extensive molecular dynamics simulations of the receptor embedded in an explicit lipid-water environment. A possible method for efficiently sampling the conformational space of such a complex system is metadynamics (MetaD) with path collective variables (CV). Here, we applied well-tempered MetaD with path CVs to one of the few GPCRs for which both inactive and fully active experimental structures are available, the μ-opioid receptor (MOR), and assessed the ability of this enhanced sampling method to estimate thermodynamic properties of receptor activation in line with those obtained by more computationally expensive adaptive sampling protocols. While n-body information theory (nBIT) analysis of these simulations confirmed that MetaD can efficiently characterize ligand-induced allosteric communication across the receptor, standard MetaD cannot be used directly to derive kinetic rates because transitions are accelerated by a bias potential. Applying the principle of Maximum Caliber (MaxCal) to the free-energy landscape of morphine-bound MOR reconstructed from MetaD, we obtained Markov State Models (MSMs) that yield kinetic rates of MOR activation in agreement with those obtained by adaptive sampling. Taken together, these results suggest that the MetaD-MaxCal combination creates an efficient strategy for estimating thermodynamic and kinetic properties of GPCR activation at an affordable computational cost.

2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 451-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Xin Yan ◽  
Deborah M. Boldt-Houle ◽  
Bonnie P. Tillotson ◽  
Melissa A. Gee ◽  
Brian J. D'Eon ◽  
...  

A novel cell-based functional assay to directly monitor G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) activation in a high-throughput format, based on a common GPCR regulation mechanism, the interaction between β-arrestin and ligand-activated GPCR, is described. A protein-protein interaction technology, the InteraX™ system, uses a pair of inactive β-galactosidase (β-gal) deletion mutants as fusion partners to the protein targets of interest. To monitor GPCR activation, stable cell lines expressing both GPCR- and β-arrestin-β-gal fusion proteins are generated. Following ligand stimulation, β-arrestin binds to the activated GPCR, and this interaction drives functional complementation of the β-gal mutant fragments. GPCR activation is measured directly by quantitating restored β-gal activity. The authors have validated this assay system with two functionally divergent GPCRs: the β2-adrenergic amine receptor and the CXCR2 chemokine-binding receptor. Both receptors are activated or blocked with known agonists and antagonists in a dose-dependent manner. The β2-adrenergic receptor cell line was screened with the LOPAC™ compound library to identify both agonists and antagonists, validating this system for high-throughput screening performance in a 96-well microplate format. Hit specificity was confirmed by quantitating the level of cAMP. This assay system has also been performed in a high-density (384-well) microplate format. This system provides a specific, sensitive, and robust methodology for studying and screening GPCR-mediated signaling pathways.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (6) ◽  
pp. 3241
Author(s):  
Raudah Lazim ◽  
Donghyuk Suh ◽  
Jai Woo Lee ◽  
Thi Ngoc Lan Vu ◽  
Sanghee Yoon ◽  
...  

G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) oligomerization, while contentious, continues to attract the attention of researchers. Numerous experimental investigations have validated the presence of GPCR dimers, and the relevance of dimerization in the effectuation of physiological functions intensifies the attractiveness of this concept as a potential therapeutic target. GPCRs, as a single entity, have been the main source of scrutiny for drug design objectives for multiple diseases such as cancer, inflammation, cardiac, and respiratory diseases. The existence of dimers broadens the research scope of GPCR functions, revealing new signaling pathways that can be targeted for disease pathogenesis that have not previously been reported when GPCRs were only viewed in their monomeric form. This review will highlight several aspects of GPCR dimerization, which include a summary of the structural elucidation of the allosteric modulation of class C GPCR activation offered through recent solutions to the three-dimensional, full-length structures of metabotropic glutamate receptor and γ-aminobutyric acid B receptor as well as the role of dimerization in the modification of GPCR function and allostery. With the growing influence of computational methods in the study of GPCRs, we will also be reviewing recent computational tools that have been utilized to map protein–protein interactions (PPI).


2010 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 262-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kamonchanok Sansuk ◽  
Xavier Deupi ◽  
Ivan R. Torrecillas ◽  
Aldo Jongejan ◽  
Saskia Nijmeijer ◽  
...  

RSC Advances ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 5 (65) ◽  
pp. 52563-52570 ◽  
Author(s):  
Saurabh K. Srivastava ◽  
Rajesh Ramaneti ◽  
Margriet Roelse ◽  
Hien Duy Tong ◽  
Elwin X. Vrouwe ◽  
...  

Flowcell with micro-IDEs (250–500 μm) covered with both stable and reverse transfected cells overexpressing membrane receptors to demonstrate impedance responses to serial injections of analyte.


2011 ◽  
Vol 286 (22) ◽  
pp. 19259-19269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Il-Ha Lee ◽  
Sung-Hee Song ◽  
Craig R. Campbell ◽  
Sharad Kumar ◽  
David I. Cook ◽  
...  

The G protein-coupled receptor kinase (GRK2) belongs to a family of protein kinases that phosphorylates agonist-activated G protein-coupled receptors, leading to G protein-receptor uncoupling and termination of G protein signaling. GRK2 also contains a regulator of G protein signaling homology (RH) domain, which selectively interacts with α-subunits of the Gq/11 family that are released during G protein-coupled receptor activation. We have previously reported that kinase activity of GRK2 up-regulates activity of the epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) in a Na+ absorptive epithelium by blocking Nedd4-2-dependent inhibition of ENaC. In the present study, we report that GRK2 also regulates ENaC by a mechanism that does not depend on its kinase activity. We show that a wild-type GRK2 (wtGRK2) and a kinase-dead GRK2 mutant (K220RGRK2), but not a GRK2 mutant that lacks the C-terminal RH domain (ΔRH-GRK2) or a GRK2 mutant that cannot interact with Gαq/11/14 (D110AGRK2), increase activity of ENaC. GRK2 up-regulates the basal activity of the channel as a consequence of its RH domain binding the α-subunits of Gq/11. We further found that expression of constitutively active Gαq/11 mutants significantly inhibits activity of ENaC. Conversely, co-expression of siRNA against Gαq/11 increases ENaC activity. The effect of Gαq on ENaC activity is not due to change in ENaC membrane expression and is independent of Nedd4-2. These findings reveal a novel mechanism by which GRK2 and Gq/11 α-subunits regulate the activity ENaC.


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