Created: May 14, 2021
Modified: May 22, 2021
Modified: May 22, 2021
G protein
This page is from my personal notes, and has not been specifically reviewed for public consumption. It might be incomplete, wrong, outdated, or stupid. Caveat lector.- (from Principles of Neural Design):
- a G protein skates along the inside of a cell membrane, bumping into the undersides of neurotransmitter receptors. When a transmitter binds, it changes the receptor's shape, opening up a pocket in the underside where G proteins can bind. A protein comes skating along, binds, and then the binding causes that protein (the G protein) to separate into parts, one of which is 'activated' (contains a small molecule with a higher-than-baseline energy state). This happens many times per receptor, so the G protein amplifies the signal: one molecule of dopamine/serotonin//epinephrine/etc. might activate 50-100 G proteins inside the cell.
- The activated small molecule is guanosine triphosphate (GTP) replacing guanosine diphosphate (GDP). This is why it's called a G protein.