Scripps researchers at the edge of paving a new mechanism to design future drugs by fine tuning its course of action

A new mechanism for future drug design might be just around the corner. A team of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute, or TSRI, has discovered a way to fine-tune the signals between the proteins that work in coordination with one another.

According to the researchers, fine-tuning the signals between the proteins is a property that could potentially help the team change the mechanism of future drug design or change the course of action of the drug. The team took a hold of this property by decoding the way how proteins interact with two different signals to produce a single integrated output.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said that the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. In the study published recently in the journal Nature Communications, the research team at the TSRI seems to have created a biological equivalent of the same idea.

"Thyroid, vitamin D and retinoid receptors all rely on integrated signals--their own signal plus a partner receptor," said study co-author and TSRI Associate Professor Kendall Nettles.

"These new findings will have important implications for drug design by clearly defining exactly how these signals become integrated, so we will be able to predict how changes in a drug design could affect signaling."

The research team made use of a number of techniques, including X-ray crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance to figure out the pathway by which two signals interact to produce a single output. They conducted their research using a small subset of nuclear receptors. In the presence of a binding partner, such as steroids or fat, the nuclear receptors produce new signals to initiate other cellular processes.

"Nuclear receptors bind different types of molecules, and some of these receptors physically interact with each other to integrate different signals," said study co-author Douglas Kojetin.

Kojetin further said that almost all of the previous studies accepted the mechanism without any proof of the interaction between the different nuclear receptor. This is the first time that the researchers have explained the mechanism at the molecular or atomic level.

Contact the writer at feedback@ibtimes.com.au or leave a comment below.