# Structural and Functional Analyses of the Full-length Insulin Receptor (IR) and Type 1 Insulin-like Growth Factor Receptor (IGF1R) in the Liganded Active State

> **NIH NIH R01** · UT SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER · 2020 · $350,988

## Abstract

Receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) represent a family of cell surface receptors. Both of insulin
receptor (IR) and type 1 insulin-like growth factor receptor (IGF1R) are type II RTKs that play
essential roles in controlling glucose metabolism, cellular growth, proliferation, differentiation, and
migration. Aberrant IR or IGF1R signaling causes a number of human diseases, including
diabetes and cancers, which makes them promising therapeutic targets. Despite the functional
importance and strong connections with diseases, the exact ligand induced activation mechanism
of IR and IGF1R are still unknown, due to the lack of high resolution structures of full-length
receptors/ligands complex. The goal of this project is to reveal how ligands (insulin and IGF1,
respectively) binds to these two different types of receptors and how ligand binding leads to the
receptor activation. Although both the IR and IGF1R share high sequence identity and structural
similarity, they have been shown to exhibit great diversification in the ligand binding properties,
which is indicative of diverse activation mechanism. Consistently, our preliminary structural work
showed that the fully liganded IR dimer is bound by 4 insulin molecules at two distinct types of
sites—the well-known site 1 and our newly discovered site 2; whereas, only one IGF1 molecule
binds the asymmetric IGF1R dimer, meaning that the binding of IGF1 to IGF1R involves negative
cooperativity. We will combine cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), biophysical, biochemical and
cellular based approaches to understand the roles of site 1 and 2 insulin binding for IR activation,
explain the origin of the negative cooperativity in the binding of IGF1 to IGF1R, and reveal the
function of transmembrane domains (TM) of IR and IGF1R in receptor activation. Aim 1 will be
focused on the functional and structural analyses of full-length IR in the active state. These studies
will reveal the detailed binding mode between insulin and the novel IR site 2, and identify the
critical role of each type of insulin binding. In addition, we will test whether IRs with different
number of insulins bound exhibit different levels of activities and trigger distinct downstream
signaling. Aim 2 will be focused on biochemical and structural analyses of full-length IGF1R in the
active state. We will identify the structural requirements for the negative cooperative binding of
IGF1 to IGF1R, and explain the functional importance of the negative cooperative for IGF1R
activation. Aim 3 will be focused on the direct visualization of the TM-TM interaction in the active
state of IR and IGF1R to understand why the TM dimerization in the active state of IR and IGF1R
is important for receptor activation.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9944268
- **Project number:** 1R01GM136976-01
- **Recipient organization:** UT SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Xiaochen Bai
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $350,988
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-03-15 → 2025-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9944268

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9944268, Structural and Functional Analyses of the Full-length Insulin Receptor (IR) and Type 1 Insulin-like Growth Factor Receptor (IGF1R) in the Liganded Active State (1R01GM136976-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9944268. Licensed CC0.

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