Melatonin is a naturally occurring hormone produced primarily by the pineal gland in the mammalian brain. It plays a crucial role in circadian rhythms. Beyond its physiological presence in humans, melatonin is found in various organisms, including animals, plants, and microbes. Two Rutgers labs, Kwangwon Lee and Guillaume Lamoureux, teamed up to identify a novel melatonin receptor in the fungus Neurospora crassa through structural comparisons to human melatonin receptors and experimentally validate its role in mediating melatonin signaling. They identified a G protein-coupled receptor (N. crassa GPR-3) as a novel melatonin-related receptor structurally similar to human melatonin receptors MT1 and MT2. They experimentally validated that GPR-3 is essential for melatonin signaling in Neurospora, as its absence leads to insensitivity to melatonin. They also demonstrated that GPR-3 mediates melatonin-induced reductions in cAMP levels, supporting its role in the conserved melatonin signaling pathway.
Maienza CSD, Lamoureux G, Lee K. Cross-species comparison of AlphaFold-derived G protein-coupled receptor structures reveals novel melatonin-related receptor in Neurospora crassa. PLoS One. 2025 Jan 28;20(1):e0318362. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0318362. PMID: 39874366. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0318362
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