Voltage Sensor Meets Lipid Membrane

摘要

Electrical impulses propagate rapidly along the membranes of living cells. The molecular components that make this possible are proteins known as voltage-dependent ion channels. These channels open in response to changes in the voltage across the cellmembrane, and it is precisely this voltage-dependent property that allows them to propagate electrical impulses. Thirty years ago, Armstrong and Bezanilla demonstrated that when voltage-dependent ion channels experience a change in the membrane voltage,tiny electrical charges known as gating charges move relative to the membrane electric field (1). This fundamental observation suggested that a transmembrane voltage change exerts an electric force on the gating charges, causing the pore within the channel protein to open.