Corringer Lab

Research focus

ERC Advanced Grant · 2017

Signal transduction and allosteric modulation of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors: from ion channel electrophysiology to atomic 3D structures

Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) mediate neuronal synaptic transmission and modulation. They contribute to higher brain functions such as cognition and reward and are important drug targets. Recent studies have revealed that these acetylcholine-gated ion channels display an unanticipated conformational plasticity, adopting multiple allosteric states that shape the time course of their electrophysiological response. To date, a single nAChR structure has been solved at high resolution, and our understanding of the conformational transitions remains so far elusive. To address this challenge, we propose to develop a top-down approach starting from the study of the conformational…

From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.