Mechanism of β-arrestin recruitment by the μ-opioid G protein-coupled receptor

Significance We report high-resolution structures for the μ-opioid G protein-coupled receptor (μOR) complexed with β-arrestin2 while bound to either strong nonbiased agonists (morphine and DAMGO) or to biased agonist TRV130 . We used these structures to identify a sequence of events leading to β-arrestin2 recruitment. We discovered that for nonbiased agonists, β-arrestin2 and Gi protein make strong anchors to the same intracellular loops of μOR,...