Sandbox Reserved 1703: Difference between revisions

'''Metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs)''' are found in the central nervous system and play a critical role in modulating cell excitability and synaptic transmission <ref name="Lin">PMID: 34135510</ref>.[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glutamate_(neurotransmitter) Glutamate], shown in Figure 1, is a negatively charged polar amino acid that is the main neurotransmitter in the brain. Glutamate activates 8 different types of metabotropic glutamate receptors<ref name="Seven">Seven, Alpay B., et al. “G-Protein Activation by a Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor.” Nature News, Nature Publishing Group, 30 June 2021, https://www.nature.com/articles/s1586-021-03680-3</ref>. '''Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor 2 (mGlu2)''' is a member of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_C_GPCR Class C GPCR]Family and can further be classified into the Group II subgroup of metabotropic receptors. Since mGlu2 is a part of the Class C GPCR family, it undergoes small conformational changes to the transmembrane domain (TMD) to move from the inactive to the fully active structure. Class A and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretin_receptor_family B GPCR] Families, however, have a different sequence homology than Class C. <ref name="Seven" />. mGlu2 functionality is dependent on the concentration of glutamate where higher concentrations of glutamate will promote stronger signal transduction from the extracellular domain to the transmembrane domain<ref name="Lin" />. [[Image:320px-L-Glutamate Structural Formulae.jpg|200px|right|thumb|'''Figure 1.'''Structure of glutamate. Glutamate binding promotes stronger signal transduction to aid in G-protein activation by mGlu2.]]