Antibodies and GPCRs. Are they a versatile tool for GPCR pharmacology studies?
GPCRs are encoded by the human genome, some of them have known ligands available which lead to the corresponding radioligands. However, in most cases they are orphan receptors, which means that no ligands are known, or there are only primary antibodies (Abs) available for their study. When directly labelled or using labelled secondary antibodies (indirect immunofluorescence), primary Abs can be used to detect the GPCRs expression through a wide range of techniques, including immunohistochemistry, proximity ligation assays and immunoblotting.
