RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Structure of the full-length VEGFR-1 extracellular domain in complex with VEGF-A JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 102822 DO 10.1101/102822 A1 Markovic-Mueller, Sandra A1 Stuttfeld, Edward A1 Asthana, Mayanka A1 Weinert, Tobias A1 Bliven, Spencer A1 Goldie, Kenneth N. A1 Kisko, Kaisa A1 Capitani, Guido A1 Ballmer-Hofer, Kurt YR 2017 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/01/24/102822.abstract AB Vascular Endothelial Growth Factors (VEGFs) regulate blood and lymph vessel development upon activation of three receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs), VEGFR-1, −2, and −3. Partial structures of VEGFR/VEGF complexes based on single particle electron microscopy, small angle X-ray scattering, and X-ray crystallography revealed the location of VEGF binding and domain arrangement of individual receptor subdomains. Here we describe the structure of the full-length VEGFR-1 extracellular domain (ECD) in complex with VEGF-A at 4 Å resolution. We combined X-ray crystallography, single particle electron microscopy, and molecular modeling for structure determination and validation. The structure reveals the molecular details of ligand-induced receptor dimerization, in particular of homotypic receptor interactions in Ig-domains 4, 5, and 7. Functional analyses of ligand binding and receptor activation confirm the relevance of these homotypic contacts and identify them as potential therapeutic sites to allosterically inhibit VEGFR-1 activity.