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Ion channels

An open and shut case

Nature volume 417, pages 501–502 (2002)Cite this article

Most ion channels open and close — they are 'gated' — in response to cues in their environment. A crystal structure of a Ca2+-gated K+-ion channel provides insight into how gating works.

Nervous systems are built for speed, using electrical signals that are propagated by the activities of ion channels. Two responsibilities are incumbent on these membrane-spanning proteins. First, they must provide a selective conduction pathway, the pore — a hospitable environment through which appropriate ions can be escorted across a cell's outer membrane. Second, most ion channels must undergo rapid conformational changes in response to metabolic cues, opening or closing the pore. These 'gating' cues can be changes in voltage across the membrane, or molecules (ligands), or both. Just how ion channels conduct ions, how ligands bind to channel proteins, and how gating cues are transduced into conformational rearrangements are the biggest questions facing this field. Some answers are provided by two papers from Roderick MacKinnon's laboratory, on pages 515 and 523 of this issue1,2. In the first paper the authors describe the crystal structure of a Ca2+-gated K+ channel, revealing details of the Ca2+-occupied ligand-binding region and the open pore1. In the second they provide the first comparison of the structures of open and closed K+-channel pores, and offer a general model for gating2.

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Figure 1: Schematic model for the gating and opening of a bacterial Ca2+-gated K+ channel, based on the new papers by MacKinnon and colleagues1,2.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,

    Maria Schumacher & John P. Adelman

  2. Vollum Institute, Oregon Health and Sciences University, Portland, 97201, Oregon, USA

    Maria Schumacher & John P. Adelman

Authors
  1. Maria Schumacher
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  2. John P. Adelman
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Correspondence to John P. Adelman.

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Schumacher, M., Adelman, J. An open and shut case. Nature 417, 501–502 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/417501a

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