Signal transduction by allosteric receptor oligomerization

Growth factor receptors with protein tyrosine kinase activity show similar molecular anatomy and contain closely related structural elements. Hence, their ligand-induced activation is probably mediated by a common mechanism. An allosteric oligomerization model is described for the activation of growth factor receptors by ligand binding. It is proposed that ligand-induced hetero- or homooligomerization is able to regulate receptor kinase...