TY - JOUR T1 - Extracellular Loop II Modulates GTP Sensitivity of the Prostaglandin EP3 Receptor JF - Molecular Pharmacology JO - Mol Pharmacol SP - 206 LP - 216 DO - 10.1124/mol.112.080473 VL - 83 IS - 1 AU - Chandramohan Natarajan AU - Aaron N. Hata AU - Heidi E. Hamm AU - Roy Zent AU - Richard M. Breyer Y1 - 2013/01/01 UR - http://molpharm.aspetjournals.org/content/83/1/206.abstract N2 - Unlike the majority of G protein–coupled receptors, the prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) E-prostanoid 3 (EP3) receptor binds agonist with high affinity that is insensitive to the presence of guanosine 5[prime]-O-(3-thio)triphosphate (GTPγS). We report the identification of mutations that confer GTPγS sensitivity to agonist binding. Seven point mutations were introduced into the conserved motif in the second extracellular loop (ECII) of EP3, resulting in acquisition of GTP-sensitive agonist binding. One receptor mutation W203A was studied in detail. Loss of agonist binding was observed on intact human embryonic kidney 293 cells expressing the W203A receptor, conditions where high GTP levels are present; however, high affinity binding [3H]PGE2 was observed in broken cell preparations washed free of GTP. The [3H]PGE2 binding of W203A in broken cell membrane fractions was inhibited by addition of GTPγS (IC50 21 ± 1.8 nM). Taken together, these results suggest that the wild-type EP3 receptor displays unusual characteristics of the complex coupled equilibria between agonist-receptor and receptor–G protein interaction. Moreover, mutation of ECII can alter this coupled equilibrium from GTP-insensitive agonist binding to more conventional GTP-sensitive binding. This suggests that for the mutant receptors, ECII plays a critical role in linking the agonist bound receptor conformation to the G protein nucleotide bound state. ER -