Structured and disordered facets of the GPCR fold.

The seven-transmembrane (7TM) helix fold of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) has been adapted for a wide variety of physiologically important signaling functions. Here, we discuss the diversity in the structured and disordered regions of GPCRs based on the recently published crystal structures and sequence analysis of all human GPCRs. A comparison of the structures of rhodopsin-like receptors (class A), secretin-like receptors (class B), metabotropic receptors (class C) and frizzled receptors (class F) shows that the relative arrangement of the transmembrane helices is conserved across all four GPCR classes although individual receptors can be activated by ligand binding at varying positions within and around the transmembrane helical bundle.

Cancer microRNAs: from subtype profiling to predictors of response to therapy.

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are key regulators of gene expression that regulate important oncogenes and tumor suppressors. Many miRNAs can also act as oncogenes or tumor suppressors, and thus the altered expression of miRNAs is a hallmark of many cancer types. Dysregulated miRNAs provide a potentially powerful new tool that could be used to enable the characterization of tumor environments and identify novel and important oncogenic pathways.