The file-cabinet in my office houses detritus of a pie-electronic past: manila folders stuffed with long-neglected reprints from a time when ion channels were known only by the electrical properties they display in electrophysio-logical experiments. Today, nearly all these ion channels are also known as proper membrane proteins, their sequences assigned to molecular families, the detailed workings of many well understood Over the past 25 years, these ion channels fell one by one to the awesome powersof recom-binant DNA, membrane biochemistry, and in a few cases x-ray crystallography: channels gated by voltage, neurotransmitters, or intracellular lig-ands; channels modulated by G proteins, Ca~(2+), phosphorylation, or all of these together; channels sensitive to heat and cold, jalapeno and menthol, mechanical stretch, even light.
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