Criteria for receptor sites in binding studies.

The study of binding is not an easy task especially because of the difficulty of interpreting the results in terms of binding on specific receptor sites. The problem is not new; what is new is the increasing amount of fanciful interpretation that such a technique has generated. The tendency to interpret anomalous or intriguing results in terms of new receptor subtypes seems to have reached its peak. The need to apply severe criteria becomes imperative before concluding that a binding site may be called a receptor site. Some pitfalls in binding studies will be discussed.