Insulin und sein Rezeptor – Spezifität durch Kombinatorik?

Glucose homeostasis and growth essentially depend on insulin engaging its receptor. Combining biochemistry, structural biology, and molecular dynamics simulations, we demonstrated how insulin binding stabilizes the insulin receptor in a T-shaped conformation with up to four bound ligands: two at receptor site 1 and - for the first time - two at site 2. These findings expand the current models of insulin binding to its receptor and potentially inform new approaches to structure-guided drug design.