title: Staples, tape measures, and bungee cords: a variety of bifunctional reagents for understanding and controlling ion channels.
abstract: Chemical modification of proteins with bifunctional reagents has become a widely used technique for analyzing protein structure and dynamics. A new era is emerging, and scientists can now actually control the function of proteins by tethering molecular switches at a desired position. In a new paper, researchers stretch the technique a bit further by using a reactive derivative of a peptide toxin to probe the subunit composition of a voltage-gated K+ channel.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720-3200, USA.
authors.forename: Alexandre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mourot
authors.forename: Richard H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Kramer
mesh_terms: D000345:Affinity Labels; D019943:Amino Acid Substitution; D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray; D007202:Indicators and Reagents / Q000737:chemistry*; D007473:Ion Channels / Q000737:chemistry / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D000345:Affinity Labels; D007202:Indicators and Reagents; D007473:Ion Channels