FTY 720 SUPPRESSES IMMUNE RESPONSES BY MODULATING G-PROTEIN COUPLED RECEPTORS ON LYMPHOCYTES RESULTING IN ALTERED LYMPHOCYTE HOMING

1999 ◽  
Vol 67 (7) ◽  
pp. S226 ◽  
Author(s):  
Volker Brinkmann ◽  
Daniel Pinschewer ◽  
Lili Feng

Author(s):  
Meriem Zekri ◽  
Karima Alem ◽  
Labiba Souici-Meslati

The G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) include one of the largest and most important families of multifunctional proteins known to molecular biology. They play a key role in cell signaling networks that regulate many physiological processes, such as vision, smell, taste, neurotransmission, secretion, immune responses, metabolism, and cell growth. These proteins are thus very important for understanding human physiology and they are involved in several diseases. Therefore, many efforts in pharmaceutical research are to understand their structures and functions, which is not an easy task, because although thousands GPCR sequences are known, many of them remain orphans. To remedy this, many methods have been developed using methods such as statistics, machine learning algorithms, and bio-inspired approaches. In this article, the authors review the approaches used to develop algorithms for classification GPCRs by trying to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of these different approaches and providing a comparison of their performances.



2019 ◽  
Vol 87 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Anderson ◽  
Yee Lian Chew ◽  
William Schafer ◽  
Rachel McMullan

ABSTRACT G protein-coupled receptors contribute to host defense across the animal kingdom, transducing many signals involved in both vertebrate and invertebrate immune responses. While it has become well established that the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans triggers innate immune responses following infection with numerous bacterial, fungal, and viral pathogens, the mechanisms by which C. elegans recognizes these pathogens have remained somewhat more elusive. C. elegans G protein-coupled receptors have been implicated in recognizing pathogen-associated damage and activating downstream host immune responses. Here we identify and characterize a novel G protein-coupled receptor required to regulate the C. elegans response to infection with Microbacterium nematophilum. We show that this receptor, which we designate pathogen clearance-defective receptor 1 (PCDR-1), is required for efficient pathogen clearance following infection. PCDR-1 acts upstream of multiple G proteins, including the C. elegans Gαq ortholog, EGL-30, in rectal epithelial cells to promote pathogen clearance via a novel mechanism.





Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document