Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Jul 10;462(4):358-64.
doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2015.04.141. Epub 2015 May 9.

The A- and B-type muscarinic acetylcholine receptors from Drosophila melanogaster couple to different second messenger pathways

Guilin R Ren  1 , Jonas Folke  1 , Frank Hauser  1 , Shizhong Li  1 , Cornelis J P Grimmelikhuijzen  2
Affiliations

The A- and B-type muscarinic acetylcholine receptors from Drosophila melanogaster couple to different second messenger pathways

Guilin R Ren et al. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. .

Abstract

Muscarinic acetylcholine receptors (mAChRs) are G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) that are activated by the agonists acetylcholine and muscarine and blocked by several antagonists, among them atropine. In mammals five mAChRs (m1-m5) exist of which m1, m3, and m5 are coupled to members of the Gq/11 family and m2 and m4 to members of the Gi/0 family. We have recently shown that Drosophila melanogaster and other arthropods have two mAChRs, named A and B, where the A-type has the same pharmacology as the mammalian mAChRs, while the B-type has a very low affinity to muscarine and no affinity to classical antagonists such as atropine. Here, we find that the D. melanogaster A-type mAChR is coupled to Gq/11 and D. melanogaster B-type mAChR to Gi/0. Furthermore, by comparing the second and third intracellular loops of all animal mAChRs for which the G protein coupling has been established, we could identify several amino acid residues likely to be specific for either Gq/11 or Gi/0 coupling. Using these hallmarks for specific mAChR G protein interaction we found that all protostomes with a sequenced genome have one mAChR coupled to Gq/11 and one to four mAChRs coupled to Gi/0. Furthermore, in protostomes, probably all A-type mAChRs are coupled to Gq/11 and all B-type mAChRs to G0/i.

Keywords: Acetylcholine; G protein-coupled receptor; GPCR; Hormone; Insect; Signaling.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources