News & Views item - October 2012 |
The 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry is Announced. (October 11, 2012)
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2012 was awarded jointly to Robert J. Lefkowitz, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA, and Brian K. Kobilka, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA "for studies of G-protein-coupled receptors".
Summarising the work of Professors Lefkowitz and Kobilka The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences writes:
Your body is a fine-tuned system of interactions between billions of cells. Each cell has tiny receptors that enable it to sense its environment, so it can adapt to new situations. Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka are awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for groundbreaking discoveries that reveal the inner workings of an important family of such receptors: G-protein–coupled receptors.
For a long time, it remained a mystery how cells could sense their
environment. Scientists knew that hormones such as adrenalin had powerful
effects: increasing blood pressure and making the heart beat faster. They
suspected that cell surfaces contained some kind of recipient for hormones. But
what these receptors actually consisted of and how they worked remained obscured
for most of the 20th Century.
Lefkowitz started to use radioactivity in 1968 in order to trace cells'
receptors. He attached an iodine isotope to various hormones, and thanks to the
radiation, he managed to unveil several receptors, among those a receptor for
adrenalin: β-adrenergic receptor. His team of researchers extracted the receptor
from its hiding place in the cell wall and gained an initial understanding of
how it works.
The team achieved its next big step during the 1980s. The newly recruited
Kobilka accepted the challenge to isolate the gene that codes for the
β-adrenergic receptor from the gigantic human genome. His creative approach
allowed him to attain his goal. When the researchers analyzed the gene, they
discovered that the receptor was similar to one in the eye that captures light.
They realized that there is a whole family of receptors that look alike and
function in the same manner.
Today this family is referred to as G-protein–coupled receptors. About a
thousand genes code for such receptors, for example, for light, flavour, odour,
adrenalin, histamine, dopamine and serotonin. About half of all medications
achieve their effect through G-protein–coupled receptors.
The studies by Lefkowitz and Kobilka are crucial for understanding how
G-protein–coupled receptors function. Furthermore, in 2011, Kobilka achieved
another break-through; he and his research team captured an image of the
β-adrenergic receptor at the exact moment that it is activated by a hormone and
sends a signal into the cell. This image is a molecular masterpiece – the result
of decades of research.
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The graphics below are taken from Smart receptors on cell surfaces information designed for the Public
For the more detailed Scientific Background click here.
and see also: https://theconversation.edu.au/the-2012-nobel-prize-in-chemistry-explained-10091.
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