Calcium channel auxiliary subunits.
Many channels and carriers associate with auxiliary subunits which modify their activities and facilitate biogenesis. Advances in genome sequencing as well as biochemical, molecular genetic, and physiological experimentation have allowed for the discovery of many transport auxiliary subunits. Recent interests in the pharmacology of the calcium auxiliary subunits prompted a large amount of effort in deciphering their specific role in the conductance of calcium ions. In this review, we evaluate the functions of the 'extra' subunits of the voltage-gated calcium channels in animals as an example of auxiliary subunits of transporters in general. We discuss the functional data available for each of these subunits, present phylogenetic analyses, and discuss their potential evolutionary origins. Our analyses also reveal novel homologues of these subunits which might be of interest to the community.
Tseng
Tsai-Tien
TT
Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA. ttseng@vt.edu
McMahon
Allison M
AM
Zahm
Robert J
RJ
Pacold
Mary E
ME
Jakobsson
Eric
E
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001692:Biological Transport; D015220:Calcium Channels / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*; D030562:Databases, Protein; D006801:Humans; D015640:Ion Channel Gating; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D011485:Protein Binding; D021122:Protein Subunits / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism*; D016415:Sequence Alignment
D015220:Calcium Channels; D021122:Protein Subunits