Ion permeation in potassium ion channels

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Abstract

The study of ion channels dates back to the 1950s and the groundbreaking electrophysiology work of Hodgin and Huxley, who used giant squid axons to probe how action potentials in neurons were initiated and propagated. More recently, several experiments using different structural biology techniques and approaches have been conducted to try to understand how potassium ions permeate through the selectivity filter of potassium ion channels. Two mechanisms of permeation have been proposed, and each of the two mechanisms is supported by different experiments. The key structural biology experiments conducted so far to try to understand how ion permeation takes place in potassium ion channels are reviewed and discussed. Protein crystallo-graphy has made, and continues to make, key contributions in this field, often through the use of anomalous scattering. Other structural biology techniques used to study the contents of the selectivity filter include solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance and two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy, both of which make clever use of isotopic labeling techniques, while molecular-dynamics simulations of ion flow through the selectivity filter have been enabled by the growing number of potassium ion channel structures deposited in the Protein Data Bank.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)326-331
Number of pages6
JournalActa Crystallographica Section D: Structural Biology
Volume76
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 1 2020

Funding

Research at ORNL’s Spallation Neutron Source was sponsored by the Scientific User Facilities Division, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, US Department of Energy.

Keywords

  • X-ray crystallography
  • anomalous scattering
  • ion channels
  • membrane proteins

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