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How to gate an ion channel: lessons from MthK

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Recent structural and functional analyses of MthK, a prokaryotic Ca2+-activated K+ channel, suggest that the interplay between cytoplasmic Ca2+ and H+ concentrations determines the oligomeric stability of its associated RCK domain and thus controls activation gating. However, the discovery of a ligand-dependent desensitization process suggests that gating in these channels might be more complicated than originally envisioned.

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Figure 1: Multiple conformations of the RCK domain.
Figure 2: A putative gating mechanism for MthK.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sudha Chakrapani and Eduardo Perozo are in the Institute of Molecular Pediatric Science and the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Chicago, 929 E 57th St., CIS W206, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA. eperozo@uchicago.edu,

    Sudha Chakrapani & Eduardo Perozo

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  1. Sudha Chakrapani
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  2. Eduardo Perozo
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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Chakrapani, S., Perozo, E. How to gate an ion channel: lessons from MthK. Nat Struct Mol Biol 14, 180–182 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb0307-180

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