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ION CHANNELS

A flexible filter maintains a tight grip

Nature Chemical Biology volume 15, pages 319–320 (2019)Cite this article

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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.

The structure of the potassium channel selectivity filter appears as a rigid entity in crystallographic and electron microscopic studies. In fact, the permeation pathway is often among the best ordered regions of the protein. Nevertheless, the selectivity filter is known to be flexible, as it adopts diverse structures in the presence of different ions1. Wang et al. now use single-molecule experiments to reveal a remarkable degree of dynamic movement in the selectivity filter2. The results show that the filter is intrinsically flexible and adopts its canonical structure only in the presence of potassium.

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Fig. 1: Simple scheme of KirBac permeation.

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  1. Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, North Chicago, IL, USA

    Adrian Gross

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  1. Adrian Gross
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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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