AMPA receptor activation; not a square dance.
AMPA receptors are tetramers assembled as a dimer-of-dimers with a 2-fold rotational symmetry in their extracellular domains. Two papers in this issue of Neuron, by Horning and Mayer and Sobolevsky et al., provide complementary data that extend this view and highlight the role of dimers in channel gating.
Stern-Bach
Yael
Y
The Institute of Basic Dental Science, The Hebrew University-Hadassah School of Dental Medicine, Jerusalem 91120, Israel.
D000494:Allosteric Regulation; D000818:Animals; D001665:Binding Sites; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray; D019281:Dimerization; D006801:Humans; D015640:Ion Channel Gating / Q000502:physiology*; D009154:Mutation; D011487:Protein Conformation; D018091:Receptors, AMPA / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*
D018091:Receptors, AMPA