US scientists awarded Nobel Prize in Chemistry
10 Oct 2012
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Robert Lefkowitz and Brian Kobilka for their research into G-protein-coupled receptors.
The researchers have been looking into proteins that let cells respond to external signals.
According to the the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, revealing how they work has been significant in understanding the network of signalling between cells.
For a long time, it remained a mystery how cells could sense their environment. Scientists knew that hormones such as adrenalin had powerful effects.
They suspected that cell surfaces contained some kind of recipient for hormones. But what these receptors actually consisted of and how they worked remained obscured for most of the 20th Century.
About half of all medications achieve their effect through G-protein-coupled receptors
Lefkowitz started to use radioactivity in 1968 in order to trace cells’ receptors. He attached an iodine isotope to various hormones, and thanks to the radiation, he managed to unveil several receptors, among those a receptor for adrenalin: ?-adrenergic receptor.
His team of researchers extracted the receptor from its hiding place in the cell wall and gained an initial understanding of how it works.
The team achieved its next big step during the 1980s. The newly recruited Kobilka accepted the challenge to isolate the gene that codes for the ?-adrenergic receptor from the gigantic human genome. His creative approach allowed him to attain his goal.
When the researchers analysed the gene, they discovered that the receptor was similar to one in the eye that captures light. They realised that there is a whole family of receptors that look alike and function in the same manner.
Today this family is referred to as G-protein-coupled receptors. About a thousand genes code for such receptors, for example, for light, flavour, odour, adrenalin, histamine, dopamine and serotonin. About half of all medications achieve their effect through G-protein-coupled receptors.
The studies by Lefkowitz and Kobilka are crucial for understanding how G-protein-coupled receptors function.
The scientists will share the prize of 8m Swedish kronor (£750,000; $1.2m).
Nobel Prize week started on Monday. So far this week, stem cell researchers John Gurdon from Cambridge and Japan’s Shinya Yamanaka have won the Nobel Prize for medicine. Serge Haroche from France and American David Wineland won the physics prize on Tuesday for work on quantum particles.
