G PROTEIN COUPLED RECEPTORS (GPCR) Clone set

Guthrie cDNA Resource Centre (http://www.guthrie.org/), a non-profit organization, provides full-length cDNA clones encoding human signal transduction proteins to the research community. GPCRs are the molecules that enable us to communicate with the outside world. They are involved, albeit at different levels of intensity, in all means of detecting the environment that are at our disposal: vision, smell, hearing, taste, and feeling. They have been very successful during evolution, being capable of transducing messages as different as photons, organic odorants, nucleotides, nucleosides, peptides, lipids and proteins. They use an amazing number of different domains both to bind their ligand and to activate G proteins. The fine-tuning of their coupling to G proteins is regulated by splicing, RNA editing and phosphorylation. Some GPCRs have been found to form either homo- or heterodimers with a structurally different GPCR, but also with membrane-bound proteins having one transmembrane domainn such as nina-A, odr-4 or RAMP, the latter being involved in their targeting, function and pharmacology. Finally, some GPCRs are unfaithful to G proteins and interact directly, via their C-terminal domain, with proteins containing PDZ and Enabled/VASP homology (EVH)-like domains.

The number of diseases that are caused by a GPCR malfunction is enormous, and thus it is not surprising that the majority of commonly prescribed medicines act on a GPCR. These are the largest superfamily of cell surface receptors and indeed of all protein families. Their signature motif are seven helices, that transverse the membrane (Figure below), dividing the proteins into cytoplasmic, transmembrane and extracellular domains. The GPCR family has great pharmacological importance, as demonstrated by the fact that 50-60% of approved drugs elicit their therapeutic effect by selectively addressing members of the GPCR family.

The above collection of 1056 full-length cDNA clones is now available from us for research into GPCR proteins. All the clones are full-length, sequence verified, free of extraneous 5' and 3' untranslated regions and expression verified in many instances. The cDNA clones are supplied as bacterial glycerol stocks (individual or complete clone set).

Our GPCR Finder is provided to enable you to obtain all the current information on a GPCR clone and to translate the Image ID to our plate co-ordinate and vice- versa.

Please go to the following website for full listing of available clones -

ftp://image.hudsonalpha.org/image/rearrayed_plates/IRBF-IRBI.preSV.data

Please note: we currently have the following plates available from this collection-

IRBI Plates 1-10.
IRBF Plate 1