title: The sodium "leak" has finally been plugged.
abstract: Most electrophysiologists generally do not speak highly of leak currents. In reality, these conductances represent a crucial functional mechanism by which neurons control resting membrane potentials. A new study in Cell by Lu et al. has surprisingly confirmed the identity of the long-sought voltage-insensitive sodium leak conductance to be encoded by the third branch of the voltage-gated sodium and calcium channel family.
authors.affiliation: Michael Smith Laboratories, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4. snutch@msl.ubc.ca
authors.forename: Terrance P
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Snutch
authors.forename: Arnaud
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Monteil
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004553:Electric Conductivity; D006801:Humans; D015640:Ion Channel Gating / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology; D012964:Sodium / Q000378:metabolism*; D015222:Sodium Channels / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D015222:Sodium Channels; D012964:Sodium