Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 9, 2026

Identification of Functional Protein Regions Through Chimeric Protein Construction
Published on: January 8, 2019
Homology modeling of human leptin/leptin receptor complex
1Biomolecular Engineering Research Institute, 6-2-3, Furuedai, Suita, 565-0874, Japan. toh@beri.co.jp
Abstract:
Leptin receptor mediates the weight regulatory signal carried by the adipocyte-secreted peptide hormone, leptin. It is important to understand the atomic interactions between leptin and the receptor for the therapeutic applications. However, the structure of leptin receptor has not yet been determined. Leptin shows structural similarity to G-CSF, while leptin receptor is similar in amino acid sequence to G-CSF receptor. Because of the similarity between leptin/leptin receptor complex and G-CSF/G-CSF receptor complex, we tried to build a model structure of leptin/leptin receptor complex with the crystal structure of the G-CSF/G-CSF receptor complex as the template. The obtained model for the complex was consistent with the results of the amino acid replacement and deletion experiments. The observation suggests that the model is useful to lead the experimental study on the interaction between leptin and the receptor.
Related Concept Videos
Ligand Binding Sites
Protein-ligand interactions are quite specific; even though numerous potential ligands surround a cellular protein at any given time, only a particular ligand can bind to that protein. Moreover, a ligand binds only to a dedicated area on the surface of the protein, known as the...
Conserved Binding Sites
Binding sites are often located in large pockets, and if their location on a protein’s surface is unknown, it can be predicted using various approaches. The energetic method computationally analyses the...
Assembly of Signaling Complexes
Interaction domains in cell signaling
Interaction domains recognize exposed features of their binding partners containing post-translationally modified sequences,...
G Protein-coupled Receptors
GPCRs are also called heptahelical, 7TM, or serpentine receptors, and consist of seven (H1-H7) transmembrane alpha-helices that span the bilayer to form a cylindrical core. The transmembrane helices are connected by three extracellular loops and three...
The Two-State Receptor Model
The binding affinity of a drug determines its interaction with one...
Insulin: The Receptor and Signaling Pathways

