bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/699645; this version posted July 16, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. 1 Insight into mosquito GnRH-related neuropeptide receptor 2 specificity revealed through analysis of naturally occurring and 3 synthetic analogs of this neuropeptide family 4 Azizia Wahedi1, Gerd Gäde2* and Jean-Paul Paluzzi1* 5 1 Department of Biology, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, Ontario, M3J1P3, 6 Canada 7 2 Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town, Private Bag, Rondebosch 8 7701, South Africa 9 10 *corresponding authors 11 Prof. Jean-Paul Paluzzi, Department of Biology, York University, 4700 Keele Street, 12 Toronto, Ontario, M3J1P3, Canada, Email:
[email protected] 13 Prof. Gerd Gäde, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Cape Town, Private Bag, 14 Rondebosch 7701, South Africa, Email:
[email protected] 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Keywords: 22 GnRH-related neuropeptides, G protein-coupled receptor, structure activity relationships, 23 adipokinetic hormone (AKH), corzazonin (CRZ), AKH/CRZ-related peptide (ACP) 24 1 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/699645; this version posted July 16, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. 25 Abstract 26 Adipokinetic hormone (AKH), corzazonin (CRZ) and the AKH/CRZ-related peptide (ACP) 27 are peptides considered homologous to the vertebrate gonadotropin-releasing hormone 28 (GnRH). All three Aedes aegypti GnRH-related neuropeptide receptors have been 29 characterized and functionally deorphanized, which individually exhibit high specificity for 30 their native ligands, which prompted us to investigate the contribution of ligand structures in 31 conferring receptor specificity.