5-HT Receptor Nomenclature: Naming Names, Does It Matter? A Tribute to Maurice Rapport

The naming of 5-HT receptors has been challenging, especially in the early days when the concept of multiple receptors for a single neurotransmitter was considered to be unrealistic at best. Yet pharmacological (rank orders of potency in functional or biochemical settings) and transductional evidence (second messengers, electrophysiology) clearly indicated the existence of receptor families and subfamilies. The genetic revolution, with the cloning and study of recombinantly expressed receptors, and eventually the cloning of the human and other genomes have made such reservations obsolete. Further, the advances in structural biology, with the possibility to study ligand receptor complexes as crystals and/or using solution NMR have largely confirmed the complexity of the 5-HT receptor system: species differences, existence of multiple receptor active and inactive states, splice variants, editing variants, complexes with multiple interacting proteins and transduction bias. This is a short personal history on how advances in biochemistry, molecular biology, biophysics, imaging and medicinal chemistry, some lateral thinking, and a decent amount of collaborative spirit within the 5-HT receptor nomenclature committee and the 5-HT community at large have helped to better define the pharmacology of the 5-HT receptor family.