Publications by authors named "Murielle Martini"
Article Synopsis
- The melanocortin receptor 4 (MC4R) is a crucial component in regulating hunger and fullness through its interaction with hormones like α-melanocyte-stimulating hormone and agouti-related peptide.
- Researchers developed a unique hybrid structure using a ConfoBody that helps them discover a variety of MC4R-specific, potent nanobodies that act as full agonists.
- The study revealed the structure of MC4R with a full agonistic nanobody at a high resolution, showing that this specific nanobody could potentially be more effective and targeted for anti-obesity treatments compared to existing peptide agonists.
Article Synopsis
- - New drugs targeting orexin receptors are being created to treat sleep disorders like insomnia and narcolepsy, offering fewer side effects than current medications while utilizing orexins, which play a role in sleep regulation.
- - Three dual orexin receptor antagonists are FDA-approved for insomnia, and new oral OX2R agonists are being developed for narcolepsy, with zebrafish larvae being explored as an alternative model for drug testing due to their similar sleep patterns to humans.
- - This study validated a method to evaluate the effects of known orexin compounds on both human and zebrafish orexin receptors, using a fluorescence assay and behavior tests to effectively differentiate between agonists and antagonists in zebrafish, highlighting
Catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) plays an important role in the deactivation of catecholamine neurotransmitters and hormones. Inhibitors of COMT, such as tolcapone and entacapone, are used clinically in the treatment of Parkinson's disease. Discovery of novel inhibitors has been hampered by a lack of suitable assays for high-throughput screening (HTS).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGamma amino butyric acid receptors (GABA) are major therapeutic targets for the development of drugs in neurological and psychiatric disorders. The new generation of GABAA modulators is targeting subtype selectivity and low/partial efficacy on the receptor to potentially overcome the adverse effects described for drugs with full agonist profile. We evaluated a screening approach to measure the relative efficacy of GABAA positive allosteric modulators (PAM) using automated patch clamp and fluorescence membrane potential assays.
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