Cell Receptors as Drugs: Ligand Binding Domains of Receptors as Drugs: A Potential New Class of Therapeutic Agents

Modern technology applied to the study of receptor proteins has revealed that distinct structural domains of these molecules subserve different functions. With many receptors it is known that a soluble, extracellular portion of the molecule is responsible for the recognition and binding of endogenous or exogenous ligands. This binding is the initial event in signal transduction for cell-to-cell communication. Some of these soluble, extracellular ligand binding domains of various receptors have been genetically cloned, expressed and pharmacologically evaluated. The preclinical data available to date suggest that these portions of receptor molecules represent potentially useful new therapeutic agents.