Allosteric regulation is a ubiquitous strategy employed in nature to control cellular processes by regulating the affinities of biomolecules. Allosteric modulators are able to tune the protein/substrate affinity in a highly predictable way, suggesting that such modulators may represent safe drugs. Tremendous advances have been made in the development of allosteric modulators and the characterization of their therapeutic targets. Here, we briefly introduce several representative allosteric modulators of important drug targets, such as the G protein-coupled receptor family. We also review the state-of-the-art experimental and computational approaches used in allosteric drug development. The accumulated knowledge of allosteric regulation and the technical progress made in drug development will lead to an explosion of promising allosteric drugs in the near future.
Keywords: Allosteric perturbation; Biased agonists; Conformational changes; Protein dynamics; Rational drug design.