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ION CHANNELS

A flexible filter maintains a tight grip

Potassium channels allow the passage of potassium ions across membranes at rates approaching the diffusion limit while maintaining exquisite selectivity between ion species. Single-molecule studies now reveal that the selectivity filter of these proteins transitions between different conformations.

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Fig. 1: Simple scheme of KirBac permeation.

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Correspondence to Adrian Gross.

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Gross, A. A flexible filter maintains a tight grip. Nat Chem Biol 15, 319–320 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41589-019-0248-z

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