Abstract
G protein-coupled receptors are allosteric proteins that control transmission of external signals to regulate cellular response. Although agonist binding promotes canonical G protein signalling transmitted through conformational changes, G protein-coupled receptors also interact with other proteins. These include other G protein-coupled receptors, other receptors and channels, regulatory proteins and receptor-modifying proteins, notably receptor activity-modifying proteins (RAMPs). RAMPs have at least 11 G protein-coupled receptor partners, including many class B G protein-coupled receptors. Prototypic is the calcitonin receptor, with altered ligand specificity when co-expressed with RAMPs. To gain molecular insight into the consequences of this protein–protein interaction, we combined molecular modelling with mutagenesis of the calcitonin receptor extracellular domain, assessed in ligand binding and functional assays. Although some calcitonin receptor residues are universally important for peptide interactions (calcitonin, amylin and calcitonin gene-related peptide) in calcitonin receptor alone or with receptor activity-modifying protein, others have RAMP-dependent effects, whereby mutations decreased amylin/calcitonin gene-related peptide potency substantially only when RAMP was present. Remarkably, the key residues were completely conserved between calcitonin receptor and AMY receptors, and between subtypes of AMY receptor that have different ligand preferences. Mutations at the interface between calcitonin receptor and RAMP affected ligand pharmacology in a RAMP-dependent manner, suggesting that RAMP may allosterically influence the calcitonin receptor conformation. Supporting this, molecular dynamics simulations suggested that the calcitonin receptor extracellular N-terminal domain is more flexible in the presence of receptor activity-modifying protein 1. Thus, RAMPs may act in an allosteric manner to generate a spectrum of unique calcitonin receptor conformational states, explaining the pharmacological preferences of calcitonin receptor-RAMP complexes. This provides novel insight into our understanding of G protein-coupled receptor-protein interaction that is likely broadly applicable for this receptor class.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 16012 |
Journal | Cell Discovery |
Volume | 2 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 17 May 2016 |
Bibliographical note
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Supplementary data available on the journal website.
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Molecular dynamic simulations of the human calcitonin receptor extracellular domain with RAMP1
Poyner, D. (Creator) & Simms, J. W. (Creator), Aston Data Explorer, 21 Jul 2015
DOI: 10.17036/3d96d65d-5c12-42d3-ac48-63d91174b32a, https://www.nature.com/articles/celldisc201612
Dataset
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Homology models of the extracellular domains of the calcitonin and amylin receptors, with or without bound amylin and CGRP
Poyner, D. (Creator) & Simms, J. W. (Creator), Aston Data Explorer, 31 Dec 2015
DOI: 10.17036/7aab1727-d526-4592-86db-e6a384bed10e, https://www.nature.com/articles/celldisc201612
Dataset