“Membrane Nanoscopic Organization of D2L Dopamine Receptor Probed by Quantum Dot Tracking” published in Membranes has been selected as a VINSE spotlight publication.
About the author: Oleg Kovtun is currently a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry under the direction of Dr. Sandra J. Rosenthal. In recently published work, Oleg used antibody-functionalized quantum dots for high-speed quantitative imaging of individual D2 dopamine receptor (D2DR) lateral diffusion in live cells with nanometer accuracy. Oleg discovered that quantum dot-labeled D2DR, the main target for all current antipsychotic medications, underwent a variety of movements, from long-range rapid intracellular transport, to short-range surface diffusion and transient receptor-receptor collisional coupling in the specialized cell surface “hot spots”. Importantly, Oleg demonstrated that D2DR missense mutants found in schizophrenia patients exhibited altered diffusion patterns and impaired recruitment to the signaling domains at the nanoscale. The significance of these findings reaches to the understanding of heterogeneous molecular phenotypes presented by genomic neuronal protein variants in mental illness and builds a foundation for precision medicine initiatives in psychiatry.”