Nature Communications (Aug 2021)

The antidepressant drug vilazodone is an allosteric inhibitor of the serotonin transporter

  • Per Plenge,
  • Dongxue Yang,
  • Kristine Salomon,
  • Louise Laursen,
  • Iris E. Kalenderoglou,
  • Amy H. Newman,
  • Eric Gouaux,
  • Jonathan A. Coleman,
  • Claus J. Loland

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25363-3
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 12

Abstract

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Vilazodone (VLZ) is a drug for the treatment of major depressive disorders that targets the serotonin transporter (SERT). Here, the authors combine pharmacology measurements and cryo-EM structural analysis to characterize VLZ binding to SERT and observe that VLZ exhibits non-competitive inhibition of serotonin transport and binds with nanomolar affinity to an allosteric site in SERT.