Underlying every thought, heartbeat and movement are ion channels, busily conducting high-speed streams of ions into cells, like subway trains coursing through tunnels. Ion channels span the cellular ...

They are literally channels for communication: Pore-forming proteins in living cells, termed ion channels, are embedded in the outer membrane of almost all cell types and play a crucial role in the ...

For this article, author Jennifer Fisher Wilson interviewed Roderick MacKinnon, Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and head of the Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology and Biophysics at ...

Scientists applied molecular dynamics simulations to visualize how potassium ions pass through a potassium ion channel at atomic resolution for the first time. (Nanowerk News) The patch clamp ...

Following this design principle, the researchers create angstrom-scale pores in bi-layer graphene sheets, and decorate the two pore edges with twisted rings of carbonyl groups. The artificial ion ...

Ion channels in the nervous system are among the most important targets for insecticides. Understanding the structure of the channels is key for the identification of novel species-specific binding ...

Larger K+ (ionic radius: 1.3 Å) can selectively permeate larger Na + (ionic radius: 1.0 Å) through biological potassium ion channels, with selectivity ratios greater than 1000-fold. Scientists have ...

"Why did nature come up with such a structural plan?" ask Rockefeller University professor Roderick MacKinnon and colleagues in their Jan. 17 Nature cover article describing the three-dimensional ...

Ion channels are attractive drug targets due to their importance in health and disease, but finding ways to target a specific ion channel selectively is a major challenge. Now, researchers have ...

A research team from the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with Chongqing Medical University, has developed three types of ...