“This article reviewed the field and considered how many types of receptor we should expect to find as a result of this mechanism and what properties these should have. By proposing a standard nomenclature, it will make it easier for scientists to compare results. ”

The paper is a review article sponsored by IUPHAR (International Union of Pharmacology) that provides guidelines as to the nomenclature of the four types of receptors. The nature of these receptors is highly unusual; they are G-protein coupled receptors which require the expression of accessory proteins—Receptor Activity-modifying Proteins (RAMPs)—and thus the field is of some general interest. Furthermore, the detailed pharmacology is controversial. By bringing together many of the main workers in the field we were able to produce a balanced account of the subject which suggested some explanations for these pharmacological puzzles. Anyone working on these receptors is likely to cite this article to verify the usage of nomenclature and abbreviations.

As this was a review article, it primarily considered the significance of novel data that had already been published. However, it also suggested new ways of thinking about the pharmacology of these peptides.

The article was very much a joint effort. It was originated by IUPHAR and the team to write it was organized by Steve Foord. Patrick Sexton, Jan Fisher, Walter Born, and Roman Muff wrote the section on calcitonin and amylin; Dave Smith produced the section on adrenomedullin; Remi Quirion, Steve Foord, Ian Marshall, and I did the section on CGRP. Steve also did produce some background information on RAMPs as his lab had discovered these just a few years before we wrote the article.