title: Monte Carlo study of gating and selection in potassium channels.
abstract: The study of selection and gating in potassium channels is a very important issue in modern biology. Indeed, such structures are known in essentially all types of cells in all organisms where they play many important functional roles. The mechanism of gating and selection of ionic species is not clearly understood. In this paper we study a model in which gating is obtained via an affinity-switching selectivity filter. We discuss the dependence of selectivity and efficiency on the cytosolic ionic concentration and on the typical pore open state duration. We demonstrate that a simple modification in the way in which the selectivity filter is modeled yields larger channel efficiency.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Scienze di Base e Applicate per l'Ingegneria, Sapienza Università di Roma, via A. Scarpa 16, I-00161 Roma, Italy. daniele.andreucci@sbai.uniroma1.it
authors.forename: Daniele
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Andreucci
authors.forename: Dario
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Bellaveglia
authors.forename: Emilio N M
authors.initials: EN
authors.lastname: Cirillo
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Marconi
mesh_terms: D003600:Cytosol / Q000378:metabolism; D015640:Ion Channel Gating; D008954:Models, Biological; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D015221:Potassium Channels / Q000378:metabolism*; D013379:Substrate Specificity
chemical_list: D015221:Potassium Channels