This article is part of the supplement: 13th Scientific Symposium of the Austrian Pharmacological Society (APHAR). Joint Meeting with the Austrian Society of Toxicology (ASTOX) and the Hungarian Society for Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology (MFT)
Meeting abstract
GPR55 is a novel cannabinoid receptor
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* Corresponding author: Maria Waldhoer maria.waldhoer@meduni-graz.at
1 Department of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology, Medical University of Graz, Austria
2 Neurosciences Institute, Division of Pathology and Neuroscience, University of Dundee, UK
BMC Pharmacology 2007, 7(Suppl 2):A3 doi:10.1186/1471-2210-7-S2-A3
The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2210/7/S2/A3
| Published: | 14 November 2007 |
© 2007 Balenga et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.
Meeting abstract
Cannabinoids exert their effects by binding to G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). To date, two cannabinoid receptors have been cloned. The cannabinoid CB1 receptor is one of the most abundant GPCRs in the central nervous system and plays an important role in pain transmission, feeding and the rewarding effects of cannabis, whereas the CB2 receptor is predominantly found in immune cells. However, some effects of cannabinoids (especially in the vascular system) could not be attributed to either CB1 or CB2 receptor function. Here we present GPR55 as a putative novel cannabinoid receptor, since GPR55 signals, binds to and internalizes in the presence of synthetic cannabinoid ligands.