by Henrike Indrischek (phd student at Leipzig University): During my research stay at Vanderbilt university this summer, I worked on the biochemical characterization of the interaction of clathrin and visual arrestin in the laboratory of Seva Gurevich and the modeling of this interaction with computational methods in the laboratory of Jens Meiler. The cytosolic arrestin proteins mediate desensitization of activated G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) via competitive binding to the active phosphorylated receptor. As different arrestin conformations can result in specific signaling outcomes, this protein family is an attractive target in drug therapeutics. Non-visual arrestins mediate uptake of the receptors into the cell by also binding clathrin, a component of the endocytosis
