New Method Enhances Drug Target Stability Developed

A new computational method for the design of thermally stable G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR) that are of great help in creating new drugs has been developed by scientists from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech), and the University of Southern California (USC). An overview of the new method was published in the prestigious science journal Current Opinion on Structural Biology.

Receptors are molecules that capture and transmit signals and play a key role in the human body regulation. GPCRs are among the best-known human protein families involved in vision, olfaction, immune response, and brain processes, making them an important drug target. For a receptor to serve as a target, the researchers need to understand its structure in great detail, just as a locksmith needs to know the lock's inner structure to make a key that fits. Studying a receptor that becomes unstable when detached from the cell membrane is a much more challenging task, which is largely facilitated by the computational methods that help to accurately predict the receptor's soft spots and the changes that will make it more stable.