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Review
. 2006 Jan;147 Suppl 1(Suppl 1):S56-62.
doi: 10.1038/sj.bjp.0706442.

A short history of voltage-gated calcium channels

Annette C Dolphin  1
Affiliations
Review

A short history of voltage-gated calcium channels

Annette C Dolphin. Br J Pharmacol. 2006 Jan.
No abstract available

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Some key figures in the early discovery of calcium channels and their pharmacology. (a) Bernard Katz. (b) Susumu Hagiwara. (c) Albrecht Fleckenstein. (d) Harald Reuter (photographs b and d obtained with permission from Richard Tsien and Curtis Barrett, from Barrett & Tsien (2004).
Figure 2
Figure 2
(a) Initial identification of a third component of voltage-gated calcium channels (N-type) from the biophysical properties of single channel currents observed in cell attached patches on dorsal root ganglion neurons. Redrawn from Nowycky et al. (1985) (with thanks to Richard Tsien and Curtis Barrett). TP=test potential, HP=holding potential. (b) Some of the members of Richard Tsien's laboratory at Yale at the time of discovery of N-type calcium channels. Right–left: Richard Tsien, Peter Hess, Martha Nowycky and Bruce Bean. Other key figures at that time, not present in the photograph were Ed McCleskey and Aaron Fox (photograph courtesy of Richard Tsien).
Figure 3
Figure 3
(a) William Catterall, whose laboratory was key to the purification and identification of the subunit structure of L-type calcium channels. (b) Purification of skeletal muscle calcium channels from Takahashi et al. (1987). DHP receptors purified with the use of 3H-DHPs; and run on an SDS–PAGE gel under alkylating conditions (+N-ethyl maleimide, NEM, lanes 1 and 3) or reducing conditions (+dithiothreitol, DTT, lanes 2 and 4), and revealed by silver staining (lanes 1 and 2) or using an antibody raised against the DHP receptor (lanes 3 and 4) (redrawn from Takahashi et al., 1987). (c) Calcium channel heteromeric complex (redrawn from Walker & De Waard, 1998), taken from ‘Calcium channel diversity' by ACD in Encyclopaedia of Life Sciences 2003. (d) Calcium channel dendrogram, showing the per cent identity between the different cloned calcium channels.
Figure 4
Figure 4
(A) Identification that the GTP analogue GTPγS mimicked the effect of activation of receptors, which contributed to showing that a G-protein was essential for this effect (Scott & Dolphin, 1986). Left: calcium channel currents recorded from dorsal root ganglion neurons, showing inhibition by the GABA-B agaonist baclofen (bac, 50 μM). Right: irreversible inhibition of currents by the GTP analogue GTPγS. (B) Identification by Stephen Ikeda that Gβγ mediated the effects of receptor activation to produce G-protein modulation of calcium channels. Inhibition of calcium channel currents recorded from superior cervical ganglion neurons by noradrenaline (NA, a), an effect mimicked by a GTP analogue GppNHP (b) and by expression of Gβγ dimers (c). Reprinted with permission from Ikeda (1996).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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    1. BARRETT C.F., TSIEN R.W.2004Brief history of calcium channel discovery Voltage-Gated Calcium Channelsed. Zamponi, G.W. pp. 1–21.Kluwer Academic/Plenum
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    1. BEAN B.P. Neurotransmitter inhibition of neuronal calcium currents by changes in channel voltage-dependence. Nature. 1989;340:153–155. - PubMed
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