Scientists at Scripps Research have comprehensively mapped how a key class of proteins within cells regulates signals coming in from cell surface receptors.
The study reveals, among other things, that people commonly have variants in these proteins that cause their cells to respond differently when the same cell receptor is stimulated—offering a plausible explanation for why people’s responses to the same drugs can vary widely.
The findings, published October 1 in Cell, set the stage for a better understanding of the complex roles these proteins, known as RGS proteins, play in health and disease. That in turn could lead to new treatment approaches for a range of conditions.
“Before you can fix things, you need to know how they’re broken and how they work normally, and in this study that’s essentially what we’ve done for these important regulatory proteins,” says study senior author Kirill Martemyanov, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Neuroscience at Scripps Research’s Florida campus.