Summary Human bitter taste is mediated by the hTAS2R family of G protein-coupled receptors [1-4]. The discovery of the hTAS2Rs enables the potential to develop specific bitter receptor antagonists that could be beneficial as chemical probes to examine the role of bitter receptor function in gustatory and non-gustatory tissues. In addition, they could have widespread utility in food and beverages fortified with vitamins, antioxidants and other nutraceuticals since many of these have unwanted bitter aftertastes. We employed a high-throughput screening approach to discover a novel bitter receptor antagonist (GIV3727) that inhibits activation of hTAS2R31 by saccharin and acesulfame K, two common artificial sweeteners. Pharmacological analyses revealed that GIV3727 likely acts as an orthosteric, insurmountable antagonist of hTAS2R31. Surprisingly, we also found that this compound could inhibit five additional hTAS2Rs, including the closely related receptor hTAS2R43. Molecular modeling and site-directed mutagenesis studies suggest that two residues in helix seven are important for antagonist activity in hTAS2R43/31. In human sensory trials, GIV3727 significantly reduced the bitterness associated with the two sulphonamide sweeteners, indicating that TAS2R antagonists are active in vivo. Our results demonstrate that small molecule bitter receptor antagonists can effectively reduce the bitter taste qualities of foods, beverages, and pharmaceuticals.
DrugCentral is a public resource (http://drugcentral.org) that serves the scientific community by providing up-to-date drug information, as described in previous papers. The current release includes 109 newly approved (October 2018 through March 2020) active pharmaceutical ingredients in the US, Europe, Japan and other countries; and two molecular entities (e.g. mefuparib) of interest for COVID19. New additions include a set of pharmacokinetic properties for ∼1000 drugs, and a sex-based separation of side effects, processed from FAERS (FDA Adverse Event Reporting System); as well as a drug repositioning prioritization scheme based on the market availability and intellectual property rights forFDA approved drugs. In the context of the COVID19 pandemic, we also incorporated REDIAL-2020, a machine learning platform that estimates anti-SARS-CoV-2 activities, as well as the ‘drugs in news’ feature offers a brief enumeration of the most interesting drugs at the present moment. The full database dump and data files are available for download from the DrugCentral web portal.
Between 2004 and 2008, the NIH molecular libraries and imaging initiative (MLI) pilot phase funded ten high-throughput Screening Centers, resulting in the deposition of 691 assays into PubChem and the nomination of 64 chemical probes. We crowdsourced the MLI output to 11 experts, who expressed medium or high levels of confidence in 48 of these 64 probes.
Integrins are heterodimeric adhesion receptors that regulate immune cell adhesion. Integrin-dependent adhesion is controlled by multiple conformational states that include states with different affinity to the ligand, states with various degrees of molecule unbending, and others. Affinity change and molecule unbending play major roles in the regulation of cell adhesion. The relationship between different conformational states of the integrin is unclear. Here we have used conformationally sensitive antibodies and a small LDV-containing ligand to study the role of the inside-out signaling through formyl peptide receptor and CXCR4 in the regulation of ␣ 4  1 integrin conformation. We found that in the absence of ligand, activation by formyl peptide or SDF-1 did not result in a significant exposure of HUTS-21 epitope. Occupancy of the ligand binding pocket without cell activation was sufficient to induce epitope exposure. EC 50 for HUTS-21 binding in the presence of LDV was identical to a previously reported ligand equilibrium dissociation constant at rest and after activation. Furthermore, the rate of HUTS-21 binding was also related to the VLA-4 activation state even at saturating ligand concentration. We propose that the unbending of the integrin molecule after guanine nucleotide-binding protein-coupled receptor-induced signaling accounts for the enhanced rate of HUTS-21 binding. Taken together, current results support the existence of multiple conformational states independently regulated by both inside-out signaling and ligand binding. Our data suggest that VLA-4 integrin hybrid domain movement does not depend on the affinity state of the ligand binding pocket.In the bloodstream circulating leukocytes respond to inflammatory signals by rapid changes of cell adhesive properties.These include cell tethering, rolling, arrest, and firm adhesion, all of which are well described steps of leukocyte recruitment to the sites of inflammation (1). Leukocyte arrest and firm adhesion are mediated exclusively by integrin receptors (2). At the same time integrins can also mediate tethering and rolling (3). These largely diverse cell adhesive properties are achieved by sophisticated conformational regulation; multiple states of the same molecule with different affinity for its ligand and different degrees of molecular unbending are attributed to various types of "cellular behavior." It is proposed that the low affinity bent state translates into a non-adhesive resting cell, the low affinity unbent or extended state of integrin results in cell rolling, and the high affinity state promotes cell arrest (4, 5). However, the exact sequence of conformational events and the relationship between integrin conformational and functional activity remain key questions (6).Integrin conformation is regulated through G-protein-coupled receptors by a signaling pathway which is initiated by ligand binding to a GPCR, 3 propagated inside the cell, and results in the binding of signaling proteins (such as talin and others) to cytoplasmic domains ...
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