Functional elements of the gastric inhibitory polypeptide receptor: Comparison between secretin- and rhodopsin-like G protein-coupled receptors

Loss of Function Glucose-Dependent Insulinotropic Polypeptide Receptor Variants Are Associated With Alterations in BMI, Bone Strength and Cardiovascular Outcomes

Glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) and its receptor (GIPR) are involved in multiple physiological systems related to glucose metabolism, bone homeostasis and fat deposition. Recent research has surprisingly indicated that both agonists and antagonists of GIPR may be useful in the treatment of obesity and type 2 diabetes, as both result in weight loss when combined with GLP-1 receptor activation. To understand the receptor signaling related with weight loss, we examined the pharmacological properties of two rare missense GIPR variants, R190Q (rs139215588) and E288G (rs143430880) linked to lower body mass index (BMI) in carriers. At the molecular and cellular level, both variants displayed reduced G protein coupling, impaired arrestin recruitment and internalization, despite maintained high GIP affinity. The physiological phenotyping revealed an overall impaired bone strength, increased systolic blood pressure, altered lipid profile, altered fat distribution combined with increased body impedance in human carriers, thereby substantiating the role of GIP in these physiological processes.

Insights into agonist-elicited activation of the human glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide receptor

Glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) and its receptor (GIPR) are part of the incretin system that regulates glucose homeostasis. A series of GIPR residues putatively important for ligand binding and receptor activation were mutated and pharmacologically evaluated using GIPR selective agonists in cAMP accumulation, ERK1/2 phosphorylation (pERK1/2) and β-arrestin 2 recruitment assays. The impact of mutation on ligand efficacy was determined by operational modelling of experimental data for each mutant, with results mapped onto the full-length, active-state GIPR structure. Two interaction networks, comprising transmembrane helix (TM) 7, TM1 and TM2, and extracellular loop (ECL) 2, TM5 and ECL3 were revealed, respectively. Both networks were critical for Gα_s-mediated cAMP accumulation and the recruitment of β-arrestin 2, however, cAMP response was more sensitive to alanine substitution, with most mutated residues displaying reduced signaling. Unlike the other two assays, activation of ERK1/2 was largely independent of the network involving ECL2, TM5 and ECL3, indicating that pERK1/2 is at least partially distinct from Gα_s or β-arrestin pathways and this network is also crucial for potential biased agonism at GIPR. Collectively, our work advances understanding of the structure-function relationship of GIPR and provides a framework for the design and/or interpretation of GIP analogues with unique signaling profiles.

Investigating GIPR (ant)agonism: A structural analysis of GIP and its receptor

The glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) is a 42-residue metabolic hormone that is actively being targeted for its regulatory role of glycemia and energy balance. Limited structural data of its receptor has made ligand design tedious. This study investigates the structure and function of the GIP receptor (GIPR), using a homology model based on the GLP-1 receptor. Molecular dynamics combined with in vitro mutational data were used to pinpoint residues involved in ligand binding and/or receptor activation. Significant differences in binding mode were identified for the naturally occurring agonists GIP(1-30)NH₂ and GIP(1-42) compared with high potency antagonists GIP(3-30)NH₂ and GIP(5-30)NH₂. Residues R183^2.60, R190^2.67, and R300^5.40 are shown to be key for activation of the GIPR, and evidence suggests that a disruption of the K293^ECL2-E362^ECL3 salt bridge by GIPR antagonists strongly reduces GIPR activation. Combinatorial use of these findings can benefit rational design of ligands targeting the GIPR.

GIP receptor: Expression in neuroendocrine tumours, internalization, signalling from endosomes and structure-function relationship studies

GIP is well known as a peptide regulating metabolic functions. In this review paper, we summarize a series of data on GIP receptor (GIPR). First, expression study of GIPR in human neuroendocrine tumours showed a very high incidence (nearly 100%) and a high density in both functional and non functional pancreatic tumours, ileal tumours, bronchial tumours and medullary thyroid carcinomas. Then, data on internalization of GIPR following stimulation by GIP are reported. Rapid and abundant internalization of GIPR also found in tumor pancreatic endocrine cells opens the possibility of tumor imaging and eradication using radiolabeled GIP. Interestingly, internalized GIPR continues to signal in early endosomes stimulating production of cAMP and activation of PKA, thus, supporting the view that GIPR signals from both plasma membrane and vesicles of internalization. At last, we summarize data from studies using in synergy molecular modeling and site-directed mutagenesis, which identified crucial amino acids of transmembrane domains of GIPR involved in GIPR binding site of GIP and/or in its activation and coupling to Gs protein. All together, these last molecular data may help to better understand structure-activity relationship data on GIP and GIPR.

Mechanisms Underlying Allosteric Molecular Switches of Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor 5

The metabotropic glutamate 5 (mGlu₅) receptor is a class C G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) that is implicated in several CNS disorders making it a popular drug discovery target. Years of research have revealed allosteric mGlu₅ ligands showing an unexpected complete switch in functional activity despite only small changes in their chemical structure, resulting in positive allosteric modulators (PAM) or negative allosteric modulators (NAM) for the same scaffold. Up to now, the origins of this effect are not understood, causing difficulties in a drug discovery context. In this work, experimental data was gathered and analyzed alongside docking and Molecular Dynamics (MD) calculations for three sets of PAM and NAM pairs. The results consistently show the role of specific interactions formed between ligand substituents and amino acid side chains that block or promote local movements associated with receptor activation. The work provides an explanation for how such small structural changes lead to remarkable differences in functional activity. While this work can greatly help drug discovery programs avoid these switches, it also provides valuable insight into the mechanisms of class C GPCR allosteric activation. Furthermore, the approach shows the value of applying MD to understand functional activity in drug design programs, even for such close structural analogues.

Extending the Structural View of Class B GPCRs

The secretin-like class B family of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are key players in hormonal homeostasis. Recent structures of various receptors in complex with a variety of orthosteric and allosteric ligands provide fundamental new insights into the function and mechanism of class B GPCRs, including: (i) ligand-induced changes in the relative orientation of the extracellular and transmembrane receptor domains; (ii) intramolecular interaction networks that stabilize conformational changes to accommodate intracellular G protein binding; and (iii) allosteric modulation of receptor activation. This review provides a comprehensive analysis of the structural, biochemical, and pharmacological data on class B GPCRs for understanding ligand-receptor interaction and modulation mechanisms and assessing the potential implications for drug discovery for the secretin-like GPCR family.

Receptor activity-modifying protein dependent and independent activation mechanisms in the coupling of calcitonin gene-related peptide and adrenomedullin receptors to Gs

Calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) or adrenomedullin (AM) receptors are heteromers of the calcitonin receptor-like receptor (CLR), a class B G protein-coupled receptor, and one of three receptor activity-modifying proteins (RAMPs). How CGRP and AM activate CLR and how this process is modulated by RAMPs is unclear. We have defined how CGRP and AM induce Gs-coupling in CLR-RAMP heteromers by measuring the effect of targeted mutagenesis in the CLR transmembrane domain on cAMP production, modeling the active state conformations of CGRP and AM receptors in complex with the Gs C-terminus and conducting molecular dynamics simulations in an explicitly hydrated lipidic bilayer. The largest effects on receptor signaling were seen with H295A^5.40b, I298A^5.43b, L302A^5.47b, N305A^5.50b, L345A^6.49b and E348A^6.52b, F349A^6.53b and H374A^7.47b (class B numbering in superscript). Many of these residues are likely to form part of a group in close proximity to the peptide binding site and link to a network of hydrophilic and hydrophobic residues, which undergo rearrangements to facilitate Gs binding. Residues closer to the extracellular loops displayed more pronounced RAMP or ligand-dependent effects. Mutation of H374^7.47b to alanine increased AM potency 100-fold in the CGRP receptor. The molecular dynamics simulation showed that TM5 and TM6 pivoted around TM3. The data suggest that hydrophobic interactions are more important for CLR activation than other class B GPCRs, providing new insights into the mechanisms of activation of this class of receptor. Furthermore the data may aid in the understanding of how RAMPs modulate the signaling of other class B GPCRs.

Generation of a highly diverse panel of antagonistic chicken monoclonal antibodies against the GIP receptor

Raising functional antibodies against G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) is challenging due to their low density expression, instability in the absence of the cell membrane's lipid bilayer and frequently short extracellular domains that can serve as antigens. In addition, a particular therapeutic concept may require an antibody to not just bind the receptor, but also act as a functional receptor agonist or antagonist. Antagonizing the glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) receptor may open up new therapeutic modalities in the treatment of diabetes and obesity. As such, a panel of monoclonal antagonistic antibodies would be a useful tool for in vitro and in vivo proof of concept studies. The receptor is highly conserved between rodents and humans, which has contributed to previous mouse and rat immunization campaigns generating very few usable antibodies. Switching the immunization host to chicken, which is phylogenetically distant from mammals, enabled the generation of a large and diverse panel of monoclonal antibodies containing 172 unique sequences. Three-quarters of all chicken-derived antibodies were functional antagonists, exhibited high-affinities to the receptor extracellular domain and sampled a broad epitope repertoire. For difficult targets, including GPCRs such as GIPR, chickens are emerging as valuable immunization hosts for therapeutic antibody discovery.

Getting from A to B-exploring the activation motifs of the class B adhesion G protein-coupled receptor subfamily G member 4/GPR112

The adhesion G protein-coupled receptors [ADGRs/class B2 G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs)] constitute an ancient family of GPCRs that have recently been demonstrated to play important roles in cellular and developmental processes. Here, we describe a first insight into the structure-function relationship of ADGRs using the family member ADGR subfamily G member 4 (ADGRG4)/GPR112 as a model receptor. In a bioinformatics approach, we compared conserved, functional elements of the well-characterized class A and class B1 secretin-like GPCRs with the ADGRs. We identified several potential equivalent motifs and subjected those to mutational analysis. The importance of the mutated residues was evaluated by examining their effect on the high constitutive activity of the N-terminally truncated ADGRG4/GPR112 in a 1-receptor-1-G protein Saccharomyces cerevisiae screening system and was further confirmed in a transfected mammalian human embryonic kidney 293 cell line. We evaluated the results in light of the crystal structures of the class A adenosine A2A receptor and the class B1 corticotropin-releasing factor receptor 1. ADGRG4 proved to have functionally important motifs resembling class A, class B, and combined elements, but also a unique highly conserved ADGR motif (H3.33). Given the high conservation of these motifs and residues across the adhesion GPCR family, it can be assumed that these are general elements of ADGR function.-Peeters, M. C., Mos, I., Lenselink, E. B., Lucchesi, M., IJzerman, A. P., Schwartz, T. W. Getting from A to B-exploring the activation motifs of the class B adhesion G protein-coupled receptor subfamily G member 4/GPR112.