Max Laboratory, Fishberg Department of Neuroscience, Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Structure Function Studies of GPCRs

Models of two of the domains of the sweet receptor (wire frame backbone structure) and the binding sites (cpk) for aspartame (left) within the cleft of the Venus Fly Trap Module (VFTM) of Taste 1 Receptor 2 (T1R2) and (right) lactisole (antagonist) and cyclamate (agonist) within the overlapping Transmembrane Domain (TMD) binding pocket(s) of Taste 1 Receptor 3 (T1R3). The VFTM is shown oriented with lobe 1 at the top and the mouth of the binding cleft towards the viewer. The TMD is shown oriented with the extracellular side on top and helices 5 (green) and 6 (orange) towards the viewer with helix 3 in yellow. My lab has mutated most of the displayed residues and tested the function of the resulting mutant receptors in order to assess their roles in binding and activation by these and other taste ligands.