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Title: Structural insights into the activation of metabotropic glutamate receptors

Journal Article · · Nature (London)
 [1];  [1];  [2];  [2];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [4];  [5];  [6];  [7];  [1];  [8];  [1];  [1]
  1. Stanford Univ. School of Medicine, Stanford, CA (United States)
  2. ConfometRx, Santa Clara, CA (United States)
  3. Stanford Univ. School of Medicine, Stanford, CA (United States); ConfometRx, Santa Clara, CA (United States)
  4. Vrije Univ. Brussel (VUB), Brussels (Belgium); VIB-VUB Center for Structural Biology, Brussels (Belgium)
  5. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
  6. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States); Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (India)
  7. Stanford Univ. School of Medicine, Stanford, CA (United States); Stanford Univ., Stanford, CA (United States)
  8. Univ. of Copenhagen, Copenhagen (Denmark)

Metabotropic glutamate receptors are family C G-protein-coupled receptors. They form obligate dimers and possess extracellular ligand-binding Venus flytrap domains, which are linked by cysteine-rich domains to their 7-transmembrane domains. Spectroscopic studies show that signalling is a dynamic process, in which large-scale conformational changes underlie the transmission of signals from the extracellular Venus flytraps to the G protein-coupling domains—the 7-transmembrane domains—in the membrane. Here, using a combination of X-ray crystallography, cryo-electron microscopy and signalling studies, we present a structural framework for the activation mechanism of metabotropic glutamate receptor subtype 5. Our results show that agonist binding at the Venus flytraps leads to a compaction of the intersubunit dimer interface, thereby bringing the cysteine-rich domains into close proximity. Furthermore interactions between the cysteine-rich domains and the second extracellular loops of the receptor enable the rigid-body repositioning of the 7-transmembrane domains, which come into contact with each other to initiate signalling.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515
OSTI ID:
1503075
Journal Information:
Nature (London), Vol. 566, Issue 7742; ISSN 0028-0836
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 167 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (9)

The role of water and protein flexibility in the structure-based virtual screening of allosteric GPCR modulators: an mGlu5 receptor case study journal September 2019
Rearrangement of the transmembrane domain interfaces associated with the activation of a GPCR hetero-oligomer journal June 2019
Conformational pathway provides unique sensitivity to a synaptic mGluR journal December 2019
Stepwise activation of a class C GPCR begins with millisecond dimer rearrangement journal April 2019
Structural architecture of a dimeric class C GPCR based on co-trafficking of sweet taste receptor subunits journal February 2019
Differential scanning fluorimetric analysis of the amino-acid binding to taste receptor using a model receptor protein, the ligand-binding domain of fish T1r2a/T1r3 journal October 2019
Computational Drug Design Applied to the Study of Metabotropic Glutamate Receptors journal March 2019
Conformational dynamics between transmembrane domains and allosteric modulation of a metabotropic glutamate receptor journal June 2019
DIMERBOW: exploring possible GPCR dimer interfaces journal February 2020

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