Target-validation
In frame of our research, we validate potential targets for treatment of symptoms of cardiovascular disease. For target validation we use transgenic techniques, which are applied to analyse the in vivo effects of an inhibitor of a novel or already established target protein.
We are specifically interested in the in vivo effects of G-protein-coupled receptor kinase 2 (GRK2) inhibition, which is a promising target for the treatment of cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension and heart failure external page(Nature 2003, 426, 574-579).
To analyse the in in vivo effects of GRK2 inhibition, we generated different transgenic models. Those models express different GRK2 inhibitors, e.g. RKIP or GRK-Inh, which is a GRK2-specific inhibitor peptide, derived from the first intracellular loop of the beta2-adrenergic receptor.
More information on the vivo function of different GRK2 inhibitors elucidated by our transgenic models external pagecan be found here.
