Two pores better than one?
Article Abstract:
A cell's membrane bristles with proteins that sense and communicate with its environment, and the cell secretes other proteins to send messages farther afield, which travel from the aqueous environment of the cytoplasm where they are synthesized, through the boundary of the lipid membrane. The translocase must provide an aqueous path across the membrane for hydrophilic protein segments, as well as a side opening to the membrane lipid phase to release hydrophobic protein segments.
Publication Name: Nature
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0028-0836
Year: 2005
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
Legacy of leaky channels
Article Abstract:
The leakage of [Na.sup.+] ions is found to be associated with an inherited dysfunction of the sodium channel in skeletal muscle cells. The studies have disclosed a new way in which a naturally occurring ion-channel mutation can change the excitability of muscle cells, but due to the prevalence of S4 mutations among the channelopathies a gating-pore leak might arise again as a malicious participant in such diseases.
Publication Name: Nature
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0028-0836
Year: 2007
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
Unexpected opening
Article Abstract:
The crystal structure of the chicken acid-sensing ion channels protein that forms a channel across cell membranes is described.
Publication Name: Nature
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0028-0836
Year: 2007
User Contributions:
Comment about this article or add new information about this topic:
- Abstracts: Linnaeus in the information age. The legacy of Linnaeus. The love of plants
- Abstracts: The lost continents. An olivine-free mantle source of Hawaiian shield basalts. The rapid drift of the Indian tectonic plate
- Abstracts: Effects of ear-tagging with radiotransmitters on survival of moose calves. Predation on moose calves by European brown bears
- Abstracts: Minimizing leg-hold trapping trauma for otters with mobile phone technology. Response of wolves to experimental disturbance at homesites
- Abstracts: Endurance running and the evolution of Homo. Fetal load and the evolution of lumbar lordosis in bipedal hominins