Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
FEBS Lett. 2010 Mar 19;584(6):1126-32. doi: 10.1016/j.febslet.2010.02.003. Epub 2010 Feb 6.
Activation gating in KcsA is elicited by changes in intracellular proton concentration. Thompson et al. identified a charge cluster around the inner gate that plays a key role in defining proton activation in KcsA. Here, through functional and spectroscopic approaches, we confirmed the role of this charge cluster and now provide a mechanism of pH-dependent gating. Channel opening is driven by a set of electrostatic interactions that include R117, E120 and E118 at the bottom of TM2 and H25 at the end of TM1. We propose that electrostatic compensation in this charge cluster stabilizes the closed conformation at neutral pH and that its disruption at low pH facilitates the transition to the open conformation by means of helix-helix repulsion.
激活门控在 KcsA 中是由细胞内质子浓度的变化引起的。Thompson 等人鉴定了内门周围的一个电荷簇,该电荷簇在定义 KcsA 中的质子激活中起着关键作用。在这里,我们通过功能和光谱学方法证实了这个电荷簇的作用,并提供了一个 pH 依赖性门控的机制。通道的开启是由一组静电相互作用驱动的,这些相互作用包括 TM2 底部的 R117、E120 和 E118 以及 TM1 末端的 H25。我们提出,这个电荷簇中的静电补偿稳定了中性 pH 下的关闭构象,而在低 pH 下的破坏则通过螺旋-螺旋排斥作用促进了向开放构象的转变。