Investigations on the interactions of scorpion neurotoxins with the predicted structure of D1 dopamine receptor by protein-protein docking method. A bioinformatics approach

Dopamine receptors play a critical role in the cell signalling process responsible for information transfer in neurons functioning in the nervous system. Development of improved therapeutics for disorders like Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia would be significantly enhanced with the availability of the 3D structure for the dopamine receptors. Scorpion neurotoxins are unique source of structural templates from which new therapeutic agents might be developed. We report here the 3D structure of the human D1 dopamine receptor, predicted from primary sequence using computational techniques. The predicted structure of the human D1 dopamine receptor is used to understand the mechanism of interactions between scorpion neurotoxins through the protein-protein docking method. CHARMM force field was used for the energy minimization step before applying the docking method.