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Letter
Nature 442, 696-699 (10 August 2006) | doi:10.1038/nature04880; Received 28 February 2006; Accepted 8 May 2006; Published online 21 June 2006
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Enzymatic activation of voltage-gated potassium channels
Yajamana Ramu1, Yanping Xu1 & Zhe Lu1
- Department of Physiology, University of Pennsylvania, 3700 Hamilton Walk, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA
Correspondence to: Zhe Lu1 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to Z.L. (Email: zhelu@mail.med.upenn.edu).
Abstract
Voltage-gated ion channels in excitable nerve, muscle, and endocrine cells generate electric signals in the form of action potentials1. However, they are also present in non-excitable eukaryotic cells and prokaryotes, which raises the question of whether voltage-gated channels might be activated by means other than changing the voltage difference between the solutions separated by the plasma membrane. The search for so-called voltage-gated channel activators is motivated in part by the growing importance of such agents in clinical pharmacology. Here we report the apparent activation of voltage-gated K+ (Kv) channels by a sphingomyelinase.
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