The metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGlus) play critical roles in modulating synaptic transmission and neuronal excitability, and dimerization is mandatory for these receptors to exert their functions. In addition to homodimers, these class C G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) were shown to form heterodimers as well. Further evidence supports native existence of the heterodimeric mGlus, such as mGlu2–mGlu4, mGlu2–mGlu3, mGlu2–mGlu7 and mGlu1–mGlu5, and suggests their clinical potentials in treating central nervous system (CNS) diseases. The mGlus are divided into three groups; it has been implied that the heterodimers can be formed either within group I (mGlu1, 5), or between and within group II (mGlu2, 3) and group III (mGlu4, 6, 7, 8). These heterodimeric receptors transduce signals in an asymmetric manner with one specific subunit exclusively mediating G protein activation. These findings highlight the physiological importance of the mGlu heterodimers and indicate a complex landscape of their functional modulation mechanisms. Here you can see a recent cryo-EM structure of the mGlu2-mGlu3 heterodimer (PDB code: 8JD0)

#molecularart ... #immolecular ... #centralnervoussystem ... #glutamate ... #receptor ... #signal ... #transduction ... #cryoem

Structure rendered with @proteinimaging and depicted with @corelphotopaint