A Biophysical Approach for the Study of Dopamine Receptor Oligomerization

The ability of certain neurotransmitter receptors to form oligomers provides an additional level of fine-tuning of intracellular signaling. Among the techniques allowing study of receptor oligomerization as well as influence of specific ligands on these processes, a biophysical approach with the use of fluorescently tagged receptors is the most sensitive. Measurement of the fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) phenomenon between two fluorescently tagged receptors is considered a very useful and measurable tool to study the physical interactions between receptors either in a single cell or in a population of living cells. Here we describe the use of FRET measurement specifically to monitor protein oligomer formation between dopamine D₁ R and D₂ R, but the same methodology can be used to study other receptor proteins as well as their mutants.