Institute for Physiology and Pathophysiology, Vegetative Physiology, University of Marburg, Marburg, Germany.
Centro de Bioinformática y Simulación Molecular, Universidad de Talca, Talca, Chile.
Elife. 2019 Feb 26;8:e39476. doi: 10.7554/eLife.39476.
Two-pore-domain potassium (K) channels are key regulators of many physiological and pathophysiological processes and thus emerged as promising drug targets. As for other potassium channels, there is a lack of selective blockers, since drugs preferentially bind to a conserved binding site located in the central cavity. Thus, there is a high medical need to identify novel drug-binding sites outside the conserved lipophilic central cavity and to identify new allosteric mechanisms of channel inhibition. Here, we identified a novel binding site and allosteric inhibition mechanism, disrupting the recently proposed K-flux gating mechanism of K channels, which results in an unusual voltage-dependent block of leak channels belonging to the TASK subfamily. The new binding site and allosteric mechanism of inhibition provide structural and mechanistic insights into the gating of TASK channels and the basis for the drug design of a new class of potent blockers targeting specific types of K channels.
双孔钾 (K) 通道是许多生理和病理生理过程的关键调节剂,因此成为有前途的药物靶点。与其他钾通道一样,由于药物优先结合位于中央腔的保守亲脂性结合位点,因此缺乏选择性阻断剂。因此,人们非常需要在保守的亲脂性中央腔之外识别新的药物结合位点,并确定通道抑制的新变构机制。在这里,我们确定了一个新的结合位点和变构抑制机制,破坏了最近提出的 K 通道的 K-通量门控机制,导致属于 TASK 亚家族的泄漏通道出现异常的电压依赖性阻断。新的结合位点和变构抑制机制为 TASK 通道的门控提供了结构和机制上的见解,并为设计针对特定类型 K 通道的新型强效阻滞剂提供了药物设计的基础。