Abstract
Biased signaling is a natural result of GPCR allosteric function and
should be expected from any and all synthetic agonists. Therefore, it
may be encountered in all agonist discovery projects and must be
considered as a beneficial (or possible detrimental) feature of new
candidate molecules. While bias is easily detected , the synoptic nature
of GPCR signaling makes translation of simple in vitro bias to complex
in vivo systems problematic. The practical outcome of this is a
difficulty in predicting the therapeutic value of biased signaling due
to the failure of translation of identified biased signaling to in vivo
agonism. This is discussed in this review as well as some new ways
forward to improve this translation process and better exploit this
powerful pharmacologic activity.