Shenzhen Advanced Institute and others have made progress in the research of cryo-electron microscopy technology

Recently, Shuguang Yuan’s research group, a researcher at the Computer-Aided Drug Design Center of the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, cooperated with the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Germany to analyze the serotonin receptor 5-HT ₃ using real cell membrane cryo-electron microscopy technology.

This study proved for the first time that the frozen structure resolved under the traditional artificial cell membrane environment is very different from the structure under the real cell membrane environment (main chain RMSD is as high as 33 angstroms), which is different from the traditionally believed analysis under the environment of artificial cell membranes or precipitating agents The three-dimensional structure of a membrane protein is different from the viewpoint that it is the same as its physiological state

Serotonin receptors (or serotonin receptors) are a group of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCR) and ligand-gated ion channels (LGIC) found in the central and peripheral nervous systems, located in animal nerve cells and The cell membranes of other cell types and mediate serotonin as an endogenous ligand and a wide range of drugs and hallucinogenic drugs

This research is the first to analyze the three-dimensional fine cryo-electron microscope structure of the 5-HT ₃ receptor in the real cell membrane environment (PDB: 6Y5A)

At present, the three-dimensional structures of many membrane protein targets are resolved in the environment of artificial cell membranes and precipitating agents

Differences in the structure and function of 5-HT ₃ receptors between the real cell membrane environment and the artificial cell membrane environment