Covalent Allosteric Probe for the Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor 2: Design, Synthesis, and Pharmacological Characterization

Abstract

Covalent labeling of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) by small molecules is a powerful approach to understand binding modes, mechanism of action, pharmacology, and even facilitate structure elucidation. We report the first covalent positive allosteric modulator (PAM) for a class C GPCR, the mGlu ₂ receptor. Three putatively covalent mGlu ₂ PAMs were designed and synthesized. Pharmacological characterization identified 2 to bind the receptor covalently. Computational modeling combined with receptor mutagenesis revealed T791 ^7.29×30 as the likely position of covalent interaction. We show how this covalent ligand can be used to characterize the PAM binding mode and that it is a valuable tool compound in studying receptor function and binding kinetics. Our findings advance the understanding of the mGlu ₂ PAM interaction and suggest that 2 is a valuable probe for further structural and chemical biology approaches.