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Structural biology

Life's transistors

Nature volume 423, pages 21–22 (2003)Cite this article

Voltage-gated ion channels control electrical activity in nerve, muscle and many other cell types. The crystal structure of a bacterial voltage-gated channel reveals the astonishingly simple design of its voltage sensor.

The membranes of living cells, from bacteria to humans, contain protein macromolecules that behave rather like field-effect transistors. In transistors, the flow of electrons through a semiconductor 'channel' is governed by the voltage applied to a 'gate' electrode. With the protein equivalents — voltage-gated ion channels — an appropriate voltage, imposed across the cell membrane, causes the channels to open and allows a current of ions to cross the membrane. The molecular structures within ion channels that sense the membrane voltage have remained obscure for the 50 years since Hodgkin and Huxley first described1 their function. But the voltage sensors have at last been made visible, in the X-ray structure of a potassium ion channel. Youxing Jiang, Roderick MacKinnon and colleagues present this work on page 33 of this issue2, and in a second paper (on page 42)3 they describe tests of a hypothesis for voltage-sensor motion.

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Figure 1: Voltage sensing in a potassium ion channel.

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  1. the Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Yale University School of Medicine, 333 Cedar Street, New Haven, 06520-8026, Connecticut, USA

    Fred J. Sigworth

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  1. Fred J. Sigworth
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Correspondence to Fred J. Sigworth.

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Sigworth, F. Life's transistors. Nature 423, 21–22 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/423021a

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