Pharmacological analysis of human D1 and D2 dopamine receptor missense variants

Drugs targeting dopamine receptors have been the focus of much research over the past 30 years, in large part because of their role in treating multiple pathological conditions including Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, Tourette's syndrome, and hyperprolactinemia. Missense mutations in G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) can alter basal and/or ligand-induced signaling, which in turn can affect individuals' susceptibility to disease and/or response to therapeutics. To date, five coding variants in the human D1 receptor (hD1R; T37P, T37R, R50S, S199A, and A229T) and three in the human D2 receptor (hD2R; P310S, S311C, and T351A) have been reported in the NCBI single nucleotide polymorphism database. We utilized site-directed mutagenesis to generate cDNAs encoding these receptor isoforms. After expression in either HEK293 or neuronal GT1 cells, basal and ligand-induced signaling of each of these receptors was determined and compared to wild type. In addition, we investigated expression levels of each recombinant receptor and the effect of inverse agonist administration. Our data demonstrate that naturally occurring amino acid substitutions in the hD1R can lead to alterations in expression levels as well as in basal and ligand-induced signaling. The potency and efficacy of dopamine, synthetic agonists (i.e., fenoldopam, SKF-38393, SKF-82958, and SCH23390), and inverse agonists [i.e., flupenthixol and (+)butaclamol] were reduced at selected hD1R variants. Furthermore, inverse agonist induced effects on expression levels were sensitive to selected amino acid substitutions. In contrast to the hD1R variants, hD2R polymorphisms did not affect ligand function or receptor expression. The observation that the hD1R mutations induce significant alterations in pharmacologic properties may have implications both for disease susceptibility and/or therapeutic response to dopaminergic ligands.