pharmaceuticals Review Allosteric Modulators of G Protein-Coupled Dopamine and Serotonin Receptors: A New Class of Atypical Antipsychotics Irene Fasciani 1, Francesco Petragnano 1, Gabriella Aloisi 1, Francesco Marampon 2, Marco Carli 3 , Marco Scarselli 3, Roberto Maggio 1,* and Mario Rossi 4 1 Department of Biotechnological and Applied Clinical Sciences, University of l’Aquila, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy;
[email protected] (I.F.);
[email protected] (F.P.);
[email protected] (G.A.) 2 Department of Radiotherapy, “Sapienza” University of Rome, Policlinico Umberto I, 00161 Rome, Italy;
[email protected] 3 Department of Translational Research and New Technology in Medicine and Surgery, University of Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy;
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[email protected] (M.S.) 4 Institute of Molecular Cell and Systems Biology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] Received: 26 September 2020; Accepted: 11 November 2020; Published: 14 November 2020 Abstract: Schizophrenia was first described by Emil Krapelin in the 19th century as one of the major mental illnesses causing disability worldwide. Since the introduction of chlorpromazine in 1952, strategies aimed at modifying the activity of dopamine receptors have played a major role for the treatment of schizophrenia. The introduction of atypical antipsychotics with clozapine broadened the range of potential targets for the treatment of this psychiatric disease, as they also modify the activity of the serotoninergic receptors. Interestingly, all marketed drugs for schizophrenia bind to the orthosteric binding pocket of the receptor as competitive antagonists or partial agonists.