Grant: Project Grant

When you think about molecules like adrenaline and how they interact with the cell- you usually think of a cell surface receptor and events controlled from that location. The classical view of cellular signalling through G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) is that they signal exclusively at the cell surface. However, many recent studies have demonstrated that not all of these receptors are transported to the cell surface and may in fact be targeted to internal cellular structures such as the nucleus, ER and Golgi apparatus. Further, their signalling partners known as G proteins may also either be localized or moved to these alternative destinations in response to activation. In these sites, GPCRs and G proteins regulate a number of cellular events in a distinct manner from those they regulate at the cell surface. We are interested in determining if these signalling systems can differentially targeted by drugs and how they may play novel roles in cellular metabolism in health and disease.