Rational drug design targeting g-protein-coupled receptors: a structural biology perspective

G protein-coupled Receptors (G protein-coupled Receptors, GPCRs) play a key role in the transmission of extracellular signals and regulation of many biological processes, which makes these membrane proteins one of the most important classes of targets for pharmacological agents. The significant increase in the number of atomic structures of GPCRs recently has paved the way for Structure Based Drug Design (SBDD). SBDD uses information on the structure of the receptor-ligand complex to search for affinity and selective ligands without the need for high-throughput experimental ligand screening and allows a significant expansion of the chemical ligand search space. In our review we describe the process of GPCR structure obtaining by X-ray diffraction analysis and cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) – an important step in rational drug design targeting GPCRs. Our main goal is to highlight to a wide range of specialists the current aspects and key features of experimental structural biology methods necessary for a detailed understanding of SBDD GPCRs.