Abstract
The δ opioid receptor is an important target for analgesic drug development. This report describes the identification of δ opioid receptor clones from human cDNA libraries and the preparation of a human δ receptor cDNA in the pcDNA3 expression vector for transfection studies. The cDNA encodes a 372 amino acid protein that has 93% amino acid identity to mouse and rat δ receptors. COS-7 cells transfected with this clone express over 1.0 pmole receptor/mg protein when measured by saturation binding with [3H]naltrindole. The δ receptor selective ligands NTB, BNTX, [4′-Cl-Phe4]DPDPE and [D-Ala2, Glu4]deltorphin all have Ki values under 10 nM while the affinities of the μ and κ opioid receptor ligands CTAP and U-69593, respectively, are over 4.0 μM. Agonists show binding to multiple affinity states of the receptor consistent with the presence of G-protein coupled and uncoupled forms of the expressed receptor. The 8-fold higher affinity of NTB relative to BNTX suggests that the human δ receptor is of the δ2 subtype.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | PL463-PL469 |
Journal | Life Sciences |
Volume | 54 |
Issue number | 25 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 1994 |
Keywords
- cDNA library
- endorphin receptors
- radioligand binding
- recombinant DNA
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology(all)
- Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics(all)