Structural basis for FGF hormone signalling

Abstract α/βKlotho coreceptors simultaneously engage fibroblast growth factor (FGF) hormones (FGF19, FGF21 and FGF23) 1,2 and their cognate cell-surface FGF receptors (FGFR1–4) thereby stabilizing the endocrine FGF–FGFR complex 3–6 . However, these hormones still require heparan sulfate (HS) proteoglycan as an additional coreceptor to induce FGFR dimerization/activation and hence elicit their essential metabolic activities 6 . To reveal the molecular mechanism underpinning the coreceptor role of HS, we solved cryo-electron microscopy structures of three distinct 1:2:1:1 FGF23–FGFR–αKlotho–HS quaternary complexes featuring the ‘c’ splice isoforms of FGFR1 (FGFR1c), FGFR3 (FGFR3c) or FGFR4 as the receptor component. These structures, supported by cell-based receptor complementation and heterodimerization experiments, reveal that a single HS chain enables FGF23 and its primary FGFR within a 1:1:1 FGF23–FGFR–αKlotho ternary complex to jointly recruit a lone secondary FGFR molecule leading to asymmetric receptor dimerization and activation. However, αKlotho does not directly participate in recruiting the secondary receptor/dimerization. We also show that the asymmetric mode of receptor dimerization is applicable to paracrine FGFs that signal solely in an HS-dependent fashion. Our structural and biochemical data overturn the current symmetric FGFR dimerization paradigm and provide blueprints for rational discovery of modulators of FGF signalling 2 as therapeutics for human metabolic diseases and cancer.