Allosteric modulation in monomers and oligomers of a G protein-coupled receptor

  1. Rabindra V Shivnaraine  Is a corresponding author
  2. Brendan Kelly
  3. Krishana S Sankar
  4. Dar'ya S Redka
  5. Yi Rang Han
  6. Fei Huang
  7. Gwendolynne Elmslie
  8. Daniel Pinto
  9. Yuchong Li
  10. Jonathan V Rocheleau
  11. Claudiu C Gradinaru
  12. John Ellis
  13. James W Wells
  1. Stanford University School of Medicine, United States
  2. Stanford University, United States
  3. University of Toronto, Canada
  4. Hershey Medical Center, United States

Abstract

The M2 muscarinic receptor is the prototypic model of allostery in GPCRs, yet the molecular and the supramolecular determinants of such effects are unknown. Monomers and oligomers of the M2 muscarinic receptor therefore have been compared to identify those allosteric properties that are gained in oligomers. Allosteric interactions were monitored by means of a FRET-based sensor of conformation at the allosteric site and in pharmacological assays involving mutants engineered to preclude intramolecular effects. Electrostatic, steric, and conformational determinants of allostery at the atomic level were examined in molecular dynamics simulations. Allosteric effects in monomers were exclusively negative and derived primarily from intramolecular electrostatic repulsion between the allosteric and orthosteric ligands. Allosteric effects in oligomers could be positive or negative, depending upon the allosteric-orthosteric pair, and they arose from interactions within and between the constituent protomers. The complex behavior of oligomers is characteristic of muscarinic receptors in myocardial preparations.

Article and author information

Author details

  1. Rabindra V Shivnaraine

    Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, United States
    For correspondence
    rvshiv@stanford.edu
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Brendan Kelly

    Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, Stanford, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Krishana S Sankar

    Department of Physiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Dar'ya S Redka

    Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Yi Rang Han

    Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  6. Fei Huang

    Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Gwendolynne Elmslie

    Departments of Psychiatry and Pharmacology, Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  8. Daniel Pinto

    Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  9. Yuchong Li

    Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  10. Jonathan V Rocheleau

    Department of Physiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  11. Claudiu C Gradinaru

    Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  12. John Ellis

    Departments of Psychiatry and Pharmacology, Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, United States
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  13. James W Wells

    Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Copyright

© 2016, Shivnaraine et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

Metrics

  • 2,425
    views
  • 603
    downloads
  • 22
    citations

Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.

Download links

A two-part list of links to download the article, or parts of the article, in various formats.

Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)

Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)

Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)

  1. Rabindra V Shivnaraine
  2. Brendan Kelly
  3. Krishana S Sankar
  4. Dar'ya S Redka
  5. Yi Rang Han
  6. Fei Huang
  7. Gwendolynne Elmslie
  8. Daniel Pinto
  9. Yuchong Li
  10. Jonathan V Rocheleau
  11. Claudiu C Gradinaru
  12. John Ellis
  13. James W Wells
(2016)
Allosteric modulation in monomers and oligomers of a G protein-coupled receptor
eLife 5:e11685.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.11685

Share this article

https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.11685

Further reading

    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    Vladimir Khayenko, Cihan Makbul ... Hans Michael Maric
    Research Article

    The hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection is a major global health problem, with chronic infection leading to liver complications and high death toll. Current treatments, such as nucleos(t)ide analogs and interferon-α, effectively suppress viral replication but rarely cure the infection. To address this, new antivirals targeting different components of the HBV molecular machinery are being developed. Here we investigated the hepatitis B core protein (HBc) that forms the viral capsids and plays a vital role in the HBV life cycle. We explored two distinct binding pockets on the HBV capsid: the central hydrophobic pocket of HBc-dimers and the pocket at the tips of capsid spikes. We synthesized a geranyl dimer that binds to the central pocket with micromolar affinity, and dimeric peptides that bind the spike-tip pocket with sub-micromolar affinity. Cryo-electron microscopy further confirmed the binding of peptide dimers to the capsid spike tips and their capsid-aggregating properties. Finally, we show that the peptide dimers induce HBc aggregation in vitro and in living cells. Our findings highlight two tractable sites within the HBV capsid and provide an alternative strategy to affect HBV capsids.

    1. Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    2. Structural Biology and Molecular Biophysics
    Andrew P Latham, Longchen Zhu ... Bin Zhang
    Research Article

    The phase separation of intrinsically disordered proteins is emerging as an important mechanism for cellular organization. However, efforts to connect protein sequences to the physical properties of condensates, that is, the molecular grammar, are hampered by a lack of effective approaches for probing high-resolution structural details. Using a combination of multiscale simulations and fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy experiments, we systematically explored a series of systems consisting of diblock elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs). The simulations succeeded in reproducing the variation of condensate stability upon amino acid substitution and revealed different microenvironments within a single condensate, which we verified with environmentally sensitive fluorophores. The interspersion of hydrophilic and hydrophobic residues and a lack of secondary structure formation result in an interfacial environment, which explains both the strong correlation between ELP condensate stability and interfacial hydrophobicity scales, as well as the prevalence of protein-water hydrogen bonds. Our study uncovers new mechanisms for condensate stability and organization that may be broadly applicable.