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Force-activated ion channels in close-up

Piezo proteins allow cells to sense forces by letting ions pass through the cell membrane in response to mechanical stimuli. Three structures of a Piezo protein shed light on how this crucial process works.
  1. Yuh Nung Jan

    1. Yuh Nung Jan is at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Departments of Physiology and Biochemistry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94158, USA.

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  2. Lily Yeh Jan

    1. Lily Yeh Jan is at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Departments of Physiology and Biochemistry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94158, USA.

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All cells can sense mechanical force, but it is not clear exactly how. It is known, however, that two closely related members of the mammalian Piezo family of membrane proteins, Piezo1 and Piezo2, have key roles in many physiological and developmental processes that involve mechanosensitivity, including touch, breathing and vascular development1. Two papers in Nature, by Saotome et al.2 and Zhao et al.3, and a third published in eLife by Guo and MacKinnon4, now report structures of Piezo1 from the mouse (mPiezo1), obtained using a technique known as cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM). The structures provide insight into how Piezo proteins might sense and respond to mechanical force.

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Nature 554, 469-470 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-01631-z

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