Mas-related G-protein coupled receptors (MRGs) Antibodies

Mas-related GPCRs (MRGs) are activated by a diverse group of ligands that includes neuropeptides, cysteine proteases, antimicrobial peptides and cationic proteins released from activated eosinophils. Of the eight human MRGs, four (MRGPRD, MRGPRE, MRGPRF and MRGPRG) have clear orthologues in rodents. The cluster of genes including human MRGPRX1, MRGPRX2, MRGPRX3 and MRGPRX4 is replaced in rodents with a family of MRG genes (>25 in mice, ~10 in rats) that have low homology to human MRGPRX genes. However, one of these mouse MRG genes (encoded by MrgprB2) has been proposed to be orthologous to human MRGPRX2, in that it shares tissue-distribution and as activated by most of the same agonists, and furthermore is encoded in a syntenic chromosomal locus. The low sequence similarity between MRGPRX2 and MrgprB2 is therefore surprising, but is attributed to frequent retrotransposon insertion into the locus in rodent.