Retinoid receptors ligand-binding pocket

The ligand binding pocket of USP is filled by a fortuitous phospholipid co-purified and co-crystallized with the USP LBD that was fiirther characterized by mass-spectroscopic and chemical analysis [57]. In a similar way, recent crystallographic investigations of the retinoid-acid related orphan receptor (3 (ROR (3) [58] and of the heterodimeric complex RARa/RXRa [30] revealed an E.coli endogeneous fatty acid in the ROR (3 and in the RXRa subunit, respectively. 

Natural variations in nuclear receptors reinforce the idea that nuclear receptors are good candidates for the creation of orthogonal ligand-receptor pairs. For example, the human retinoic acid receptor (RAR) has three subtypes RARa, RAR/ and RARy. These three subtypes differ at 87 amino acids but have only three divergent residues in the binding pocket [11] (Tab. 8.1). However, these three divergent residues are responsible for different binding profiles of synthetic retinoids... 

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