The secret is in the control over electrical signals generated by cells. These signals depend on ion channels - membrane proteins found in excitable cells, such as nerve cells - that allow them to generate electrical signals, depending on whether the channels are opened or closed. Prof. Eitan Reuveny, together with Ph.D. students Inbal Riven and Shachar Iwanir of the Weizmann Institute's Biological Chemistry Department, studied channels that work on potassium ions and are coupled to a protein called the G protein, which when activated, causes the channel to open. Opening the channel inhibits the conductance of electrical signals, a fact that might be relevant, for example, in the control of seizures.
The G protein itself is activated by another protein, a receptor, which gets its cue to carry out its task from chemical messengers known as neurotransmitters. But neurotransmitters are general messengers - they can inhibit as well as excite, and the receptors can respond to either message. How, the scientists wanted to know, is the G protein targeted so quickly and precisely to activate the channel?
Reuveny and his team found that the receptor and G protein are physically bound together in a complex, allowing the process to be finely tuned. When the receptor receives a chemical message from the neurotransmitter, it is already hooked up to the correct G protein. After being activated by the receptor, the G protein changes shape, opening the ion channel. The evidence for this complex structure came from special technique called FRET (Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer) that can measure the distance between two molecules. The scientists observed that even without stimulation, there is a lot of energy transfer between the G protein and the potassium channel, suggesting that they are very close together.
Mutations in ion channels are likely to be involved in epilepsy, chronic pain, neurodegenerative diseases and muscular diseases, and ion channels are the target of many drugs. Understanding the basic biological phenomena behind the way proteins organize themselves and orchestrate biological processes may allow scientists to design better or more efficient drugs.
Prof. Eitan Reuveny's research is supported by the Y. Leon Benoziyo Institute for Molecular Medicine; the Clore Center for Biological Physics; and the Dr. Josef Cohn Minerva Center for Biomembrane Research.
The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, is one of the world's top-ranking multidisciplinary research institutions. Noted for its wide-ranging exploration of the natural and exact sciences, the Institute is home to 2,500 scientists, students, technicians and supporting staff. Institute research efforts include the search for new ways of fighting disease and hunger, examining leading questions in mathematics and computer science, probing the physics of matter and the universe, creating novel materials and developing new strategies for protecting the environment.
Contact: Jennifer Manning
American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science
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