Summary: Researchers report the key why LSD hallucinations last so long is due to how it fits into serotonin receptors.
Source: Cell Press.
Lysergic acid diethylamide–more commonly known as “LSD” or simply “acid”–is one of the longest lasting and most potent hallucinogens, but researchers have never understood why LSD’s effects linger for 12 hours or more. The key to the drug’s psychedelic longevity lies in how it fits into receptors in the brain, as reported in a study appearing January 27 in Cell.
“When I was younger, and The Grateful Dead was still around, I would occasionally go to Grateful Dead concerts. A lot of people took LSD and similar drugs during concerts, and it would be interesting to be in the parking lot hearing people wondering when their LSD experience was going to end,” says Bryan Roth (@zenbrainest), a professor of pharmacology at University of North Carolina and a senior co-author on the study. “A lot of people who take the drug are not aware of just how long it lasts.”
Scientists from Roth’s lab at UNC captured crystallography images (images showing how a molecule’s atoms are arranged) of an LSD molecule bound to a human serotonin receptor and discovered that the LSD molecule was wedged into the receptor’s binding pocket at an angle no one had expected. On top of that, part of the receptor protein had folded in over the LSD like a lid, sealing the drug inside.
“Once LSD gets in the receptor, a lid comes over the LSD, so it’s basically trapped in the receptor and can’t get out,” says Roth. “LSD takes a really long time to get on the receptor, and then once it gets on, it doesn’t get off,” he added.
This finding explains why LSD trips last for a full day, even though LSD doses are extremely small–the average dose is 100 or so micrograms–and LSD molecules are cleared from the bloodstream in a couple of hours. Given that there has been a tentative resurgence in testing LSD for some medical conditions, understanding the mechanism of its potent and long-lasting actions may help drug developers design more effective psychiatric drugs with fewer side effects, the researchers say.
While speculative, the study’s results may help researchers think about how LSD micro-dosing could work. About 1 in 10 Americans have taken LSD at some point in their life, but increasingly, people are taking LSD at doses too small to cause hallucinations with the goal of boosting their creativity and countering depression. LSD micro-dosing has never been clinically tested, and many scientists have doubted that taking such small amounts of the drug would have any detectable effect. But when Roth’s group exposed live cells in a Petri dish to micro-dose-sized amounts of LSD, those tiny doses of LSD affected the receptors’ signaling. It’s as yet unknown how this signaling would translate into an effect on a person’s mood or perception, although the studies demonstrate LSD’s remarkably potent actions on cellular signaling.
LSD’s ability to fit in and let the receptor’s “lid” close over it depends on the specific chemical structures of both the drug and the receptor. When the team exposed cells with mutant receptors that had floppier lids to LSD, the LSD bound more quickly and also exited the receptor much faster. Those short LSD binding events produced very different signaling patterns than the longer binding events.
“I think it’s important for the pharmaceutical industry to understand that even if you modify just one tiny aspect of any compound, you may affect the way the entire compound sits in the receptor, and that affects the compound’s performance,” says study first author Daniel Wacker, a postdoctoral fellow at UNC.
The researchers stressed that they do not advocate LSD use, as it is an illegal and potentially dangerous drug. However, its potential medical applications, and its enormous impact on pop culture, warrant an understanding of its modes of action and ways in which they can be modified.
A separate study on LSD, published January 27 in Current Biology, found that one of the receptors the team tested plays a role in peoples’ experience of music while on LSD.
Funding: This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Mental Health, a Terman Faculty Fellowship, and the Michael Hooker Distinguished Chair of Pharmacology.
Source: Diana Crow – Cell Press
Image Source: NeuroscienceNews.com image is credited to Annie Spikes.
Original Research: Full open access research for “Crystal Structure of an LSD-Bound Human Serotonin Receptor” by Daniel Wacker, Sheng Wang, John D. McCorvy, Robin M. Betz, A.J. Venkatakrishnan, Anat Levit, Katherine Lansu, Zachary L. Schools, Tao Che, David E. Nichols, Brian K. Shoichet, Ron O. Dror, and Bryan L. Roth in Science Translational Medicine. Published online December 21 2016 doi:10.1016/j.cell.2016.12.033
[cbtabs][cbtab title=”MLA”]Cell Press “Structure of LSD and Its Receptor Explains Its Potency.” NeuroscienceNews. NeuroscienceNews, 27 January 2017.
<https://neurosciencenews.com/lsd-potency-receptor-6013/>.[/cbtab][cbtab title=”APA”]Cell Press (2017, January 27). Structure of LSD and Its Receptor Explains Its Potency. NeuroscienceNew. Retrieved January 27, 2017 from https://neurosciencenews.com/lsd-potency-receptor-6013/[/cbtab][cbtab title=”Chicago”]Cell Press “Structure of LSD and Its Receptor Explains Its Potency.” https://neurosciencenews.com/lsd-potency-receptor-6013/ (accessed January 27, 2017).[/cbtab][/cbtabs]
Abstract
Crystal Structure of an LSD-Bound Human Serotonin Receptor
Highlights
•Crystal structure of the human 5-HT2B receptor bound to LSD is determined
•LSD shows unexpected binding configuration in the orthosteric site
•LSD has extremely slow on and off rate at 5-HT2B and 5-HT2A receptors
•Accelerated LSD kinetics selectively reduce arrestin signaling at 5-HT2B and 5-HT2A
Summary
The prototypical hallucinogen LSD acts via serotonin receptors, and here we describe the crystal structure of LSD in complex with the human serotonin receptor 5-HT2B. The complex reveals conformational rearrangements to accommodate LSD, providing a structural explanation for the conformational selectivity of LSD’s key diethylamide moiety. LSD dissociates exceptionally slow from both 5-HT2BR and 5-HT2AR—a major target for its psychoactivity. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations suggest that LSD’s slow binding kinetics may be due to a “lid” formed by extracellular loop 2 (EL2) at the entrance to the binding pocket. A mutation predicted to increase the mobility of this lid greatly accelerates LSD’s binding kinetics and selectively dampens LSD-mediated β-arrestin2 recruitment. This study thus reveals an unexpected binding mode of LSD; illuminates key features of its kinetics, stereochemistry, and signaling; and provides a molecular explanation for LSD’s actions at human serotonin receptors.
“Crystal Structure of an LSD-Bound Human Serotonin Receptor” by Daniel Wacker, Sheng Wang, John D. McCorvy, Robin M. Betz, A.J. Venkatakrishnan, Anat Levit, Katherine Lansu, Zachary L. Schools, Tao Che, David E. Nichols, Brian K. Shoichet, Ron O. Dror, and Bryan L. Roth in Science Translational Medicine. Published online December 21 2016 doi:10.1016/j.cell.2016.12.033
