PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Pawel Kozielewicz
AU  - Ainoleena Turku
AU  - Gunnar Schulte
TI  - Molecular Pharmacology of Class F Receptor Activation
AID  - 10.1124/mol.119.117986
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - Molecular Pharmacology
PG  - mol.119.117986
4099  - http://molpharm.aspetjournals.org/content/early/2019/10/07/mol.119.117986.short
4100  - http://molpharm.aspetjournals.org/content/early/2019/10/07/mol.119.117986.full
AB  - The Class Frizzled or Class F of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) consists of ten Frizzled (FZD1-10) paralogues and Smoothened (SMO). FZDs coordinate Wingless/Int-1 (WNT) signaling and SMO mediates Hedgehog signaling. Class F receptor signaling is intrinsically important for embryonic development and its dysregulation leads to diseases, not at least diverse forms of tumours. With regard to the importance of Class F signaling in human disease, these receptors provide an attractive target for therapeutics, exemplified by the use of SMO antagonists for the treatment of basal cell carcinoma. Here, we review recent structural insights in combination with a more detailed functional understanding of Class F receptor activation, G protein coupling, conformation-based functional selectivity and mechanistic details of activating cancer mutations, which will lay the basis for further development of Class F-targeting small molecules for human therapy.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Stimulated by recent insights into the activation mechanisms of Class F receptors from structural and functional analysis of Frizzled and Smoothened, we aim to summarize what we know about molecular details of ligand binding, agonist-driven conformational changes and Class F receptor activation. A better understanding of receptor activation mechanisms will allow us to engage in structure- and mechanism-driven drug discovery with the potential to develop more isoform-selective and potentially pathway-selective drugs for human therapy.