| abstract |
The invention provides a modified tachykinin receptor in which the three amino acids of the DRY sequence that occurs adjacent to the junction of the TM3 domain with intracellular loop 2 are replaced with amino acids whose side chains are neither lipophilic nor contain charged groups. The receptor exhibits similar ligand binding characteristics to the wild type receptor but is incapable or substantially incapable of initiating an endogenous signal. Thus the ligand exhibits no or substantially no intracellular coupling of the receptor to the G protein, whereby there is substantially no transduction of ligand binding signals to the cell, The invention also includes fragments of the receptor containing the modified DRY sequence, and polynucleotides that encode the modified receptor as aforesaid. Therapeutic and diagnostic uses for the receptor are disclosed. |