New hope for active substances Leipzig research puts rare receptors at the centre of medicine

The focus is on so-called adhesion G protein-coupled receptors. These proteins are located on the surface of cells and react to chemical and mechanical stimuli. Although they are involved in numerous diseases, there is as yet no authorised drug that acts specifically on these molecules. A total of 17 of the 33 known human receptors have already been linked to diseases. An international team from Leipzig University and Shandong University has now summarised the current state of research in a comprehensive analysis. The study was published in the renowned journal Nature Reviews Drug Discovery and brings together findings from around three decades of research and almost 300 scientific papers. The researchers in Leipzig are already working on new active substances that specifically target individual signalling pathways of these receptors. Such precise approaches could reduce side effects and enable new therapies for cardiovascular diseases, metabolic disorders or cancer, for example. The first experimental active substances are also already showing promising effects in animal models. This opens up a new field for pharmaceutical research. What was long regarded as a barely usable family of receptors could prove to be the key to a new generation of precise medicines in the future.