Professor Ka Young Chung's group (Hee Ryung Kim: Ph.D. student, co-first author, Global Ph.D. Fellowship) from School of pharmacy of Sungkyunkwan University (President Kyu Sang Chung) elucidated the mechanism of Wnt signaling in collaboration with the groups of Professor Hee-Jung Choi from Department of Life Sciences, Seoul National University and Professor Chaok Seok from Department of Chemistry, Seoul National University.
Wnt signaling is an important signaling in which a type of hormone called Wnt controls embryo development, cancer and tissue regeneration in humans. Precise understanding of Wnt signaling will contribute to anti-cancer drug development significantly.
Wnt signaling acts via Frizzled receptor, a type of GPCR family. GPCR families control various physiological functions such as vision, olfactory, cardiovascular and neuronal regulation, immune system and metabolism. Currently, 40% of commercialized drugs target GPCRs. Due to its importance, the scientists studying GPCR mechanism have been awarded with 1971 Nobel Prize in Physiology, 1994 Nobel Prize in Physiology and 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
□ Frizzled receptor has not been elucidated much compared to other GPCR families despite its pathological importance.
□ This research elucidated the mechanism of complex formation between Frizzled receptor and hormone Wnt and their downstream signaling by a combination of various methods such as structural analysis mass spectrometry computational modeling and cell biology studies (Figure).