Crystal structure and association behaviour of the GluR2 amino-terminal domain.
Jin, R., Singh, S.K., Gu, S., Furukawa, H., Sobolevsky, A.I., Zhou, J., Jin, Y., Gouaux, E.(2009) EMBO J 28: 1812-1823
- PubMed: 19461580 
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/emboj.2009.140
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:  
3H5V, 3H5W - PubMed Abstract: 
Fast excitatory neurotransmission is mediated largely by ionotropic glutamate receptors (iGluRs), tetrameric, ligand-gated ion channel proteins comprised of three subfamilies, AMPA, kainate and NMDA receptors, with each subfamily sharing a common, modular-domain architecture. For all receptor subfamilies, active channels are exclusively formed by assemblages of subunits within the same subfamily, a molecular process principally encoded by the amino-terminal domain (ATD). However, the molecular basis by which the ATD guides subfamily-specific receptor assembly is not known. Here we show that AMPA receptor GluR1- and GluR2-ATDs form tightly associated dimers and, by the analysis of crystal structures of the GluR2-ATD, propose mechanisms by which the ATD guides subfamily-specific receptor assembly.
Organizational Affiliation: 
Center for Neuroscience, Aging, and Stem Cell Research, Burnham Institute for Medical Research, La Jolla, CA, USA. rjin@burnham.org