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Bacterial ion channels and their eukaryotic homologues
Author(s) -
Koprowski Piotr,
Kubalski Andrzej
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
bioessays
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.175
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1521-1878
pISSN - 0265-9247
DOI - 10.1002/bies.10017
Subject(s) - mechanosensitive channels , ion channel , kcsa potassium channel , mechanosensation , biology , function (biology) , biophysics , microbiology and biotechnology , computational biology , chemistry , biochemistry , receptor
Due to the relative ease of obtaining their crystal structures, bacterial ion channels provide a unique opportunity to analyse structure and function of their eukaryotic homologues. This review describes prokaryotic channels whose structures have been determined. These channels are KcsA, a bacterial homologue of eukaryotic potassium channels, MscL, a bacterial mechanosensitive ion channel and ClC0, a prokaryotic homologue of the eukaryotic ClC family of anion‐selective channels. General features of their structure and function are described with a special emphasis on the advantages that these channels offer for understanding the properties of their eukaryotic homologues. We present amino‐acid sequences of eukaryotic proteins related in their primary sequences to bacterial mechanosensitive channels. The usefulness of bacterial mechanosensitive channels for the studies on general principles of mechanosensation is discussed. BioEssays 23:1148–1158, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.