Bioorthogonal Labeling of Ghrelin Receptor to Facilitate Studies of Ligand-Dependent Conformational Dynamics.

Ghrelin receptor (GhrR) is a promising drug target because of its central role in energy homeostasis. GhrR, known for high constitutive activity, is thought to display multi-state conformations during activation and signaling. We used genetically encoded unnatural amino acids and bioorthogonal labeling reactions to engineer multiple fluorescent donor-acceptor pairs to probe ligand-directed structural changes in GhrR. We demonstrate how conformational dynamics of a G-protein-coupled receptor can be measured in reconstituted systems.