Abstract
Potassium channels comprise a diverse class of ion channels important for neuronal excitability and plasticity1,2. The recent cloning of the Shaker locus from Drosophila melanogaster has provided a starting point for molecular studies of potassium channels3–5. Predicted Shaker proteins6,7 appear to be integral membrane proteins and have a sequence similar to the sequence of the S4 segment of the vertebrate sodium channel8, where the S4 segment has been proposed to be the voltage sensor8–11. Expression studies in frog oocytes confirm that Shaker encodes a component of a potassium channel (the A channel) that conducts a fast transient potassium current12. Here we report the isolation of complementary DNA clones from the mouse brain, the nucleotide sequences of which predict a protein remarkably similar to the Shaker protein. The strong conservation of the predicted protein sequence in flies and mammals suggests that these mouse clones encode a potassium channel component and that the conserved amino acids may be essential to some aspect of potassium channel function.
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Tempel, B., Jan, Y. & Jan, L. Cloning of a probable potassium channel gene from mouse brain. Nature 332, 837–839 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1038/332837a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/332837a0
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