Purali Nuhan
Faculty of Medicine, Department of Biophysics, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey.
Bioelectricity. 2025 Mar 18;7(1):58-70. doi: 10.1089/bioe.2024.0028. eCollection 2025 Mar.
Sensation begins at the periphery, where distinct transducer proteins, activated by specific physical stimuli, initiate biological events to convert the stimulus into electrical activity. These evoked pulse trains encode various properties of the stimulus and travel to higher centers, enabling perception of the physical environment. Transduction is an essential process in all of the five senses described by Aristotle. A substantial amount of information is already available on how G-protein coupled receptor proteins transduce exposure to light, odors, and tastants. Functional studies have revealed the presence of mechanosensitive (MS) ion channels, which act as force transducers, in a wide range of organisms from archaea to mammals. However, the molecular basis of mechanosensitivity is incompletely understood. Recently, the structure of a few MS channels and the molecular mechanisms linking mechanical force to channel gating have been partially revealed. This article reviews recent developments focusing on the molecular basis of mechanosensitivity and emerging methods to investigate MS channels.
感觉始于外周,在那里,由特定物理刺激激活的不同转导蛋白引发生物事件,将刺激转化为电活动。这些诱发的脉冲序列编码刺激的各种特性,并传导至更高的神经中枢,从而使人能够感知物理环境。转导是亚里士多德所描述的所有五种感官中的一个基本过程。关于G蛋白偶联受体蛋白如何转导对光、气味和味觉物质的暴露,已经有大量信息。功能研究表明,从古细菌到哺乳动物的广泛生物体中都存在作为力转导器的机械敏感(MS)离子通道。然而,机械敏感性的分子基础尚未完全明确。最近,一些MS通道的结构以及将机械力与通道门控联系起来的分子机制已被部分揭示。本文综述了聚焦于机械敏感性分子基础的最新进展以及研究MS通道的新兴方法。