http://www.ibiology.org/ibioseminars/cell-biology/robert-lefkowitz-part-1.html
In the first segment of the lecture, the history of discovery in the field of seven transmembrane receptor research over the past forty years is reviewed. Highlights include overcoming initial skepticism that the receptors even existed; isolating the receptors as discrete biochemical entities and demonstrating their ligand binding and functional activating properties; discovering their seven transmembrane spanning arrangement and homology with the visual light receptor rhodopsin, thereby leading to the discovery of the wider seven transmembrane receptor superfamily; determination of the structure function relationships of the receptors by mutagenesis and chimeric receptor construction; discovery of constitutively active mutant receptors; discovery of the phosphorylation of the receptors by G protein coupled receptor kinases, and of the Beta-arrestins and of their universal mechanism for desensitizing the receptors. See more at www.ibiology.org
