Hormones play a vital role in the regulation of cellular activity.
Our studies indicate that a preferred conformation of these small peptides is necessary for full biological activity. We wish to fully describe the structure of the pheromone binding site within the receptor and to understand how the pheromone activates the signal transduction pathway by binding to this site. These experiments will be done by using both a battery of pheromone analogs we have synthesized by peptide chemistry and also receptor mutants we have generated by molecular biological techniques.