Anti-diabetic actions of a non-agonist PPARγ ligand blocking Cdk5-mediated phosphorylation
Researchers from the Center for Computational Science (CCS) with their collaborators from Harvard, The Scripps Research Institute, and Yale have just published a study, “Anti-diabetic actions of a non-agonist PPARγ ligand blocking Cdk5-mediated phosphorylation” in the prestigious journal Nature that may lead to the development of novel, safer, antidiabetic drugs. These new type of drugs are designed to target the nuclear receptor PPARγ, but do not exhibit the serious side effects, such as fluid retention and weight gain, of many of the current PPARγ targeting drugs.
Drs. Stephan Schurer and Dusica Vidovic from the CCS conducted computational molecular modeling studies to predict the binding mode of a new synthetic PPARγ ligand with a novel molecular mechanism of action blocking CDK5-mediated phosphorylation of the receptor, and which does not show any of the agonist activity of the current drugs that has been associated with the observed site effects. Click here to view the entire article.