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Comment
. 2018 Sep 11;115(37):9057-9059.
doi: 10.1073/pnas.1813013115. Epub 2018 Aug 22.

Gating currents indicate complex gating of voltage-gated proton channels

Thomas E DeCoursey  1
Affiliations
Comment

Gating currents indicate complex gating of voltage-gated proton channels

Thomas E DeCoursey. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. .
No abstract available

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Conflict of interest statement

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.
Three physical representations of how gating currents might arise. The cartoons depict channels in a membrane viewed from the side. In each pair, the resting state is on the Left, and an activated state leading to current flow is on the Right. (A) Positively charged groups (blue hexagons) within the protein physically move outward. If most of the membrane potential drops across a short central “hydrophobic gasket,” then the charges need only move from the internal to the external aqueous vestibule to effectively transfer the charge across the entire membrane electric field. (B) Charges within the protein need not themselves move at all if the protein and its electric field are rearranged, for example, if the accessibility of charged groups switches between internal and external. (C) A proton (green star) might move from the bulk internal solution through a crevice where it could protonate an acidic group (red pentagon). If the crevice is narrow, the proton would cross part of the membrane electric field to reach the protonation site. A contribution of proton movement to gating currents has been proposed for K+ channels (32) as well as for HV1 (12, 18).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment on

References

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