Related papers: Mechanosensitive Channel Activation by Diffusio-Os…

The non-selective voltage activated cation channel from the human red cells, which is activated at depolarizing potentials, has been shown to exhibit counter-clockwise gating hysteresis. We have analyzed the phenomenon with the simplest…

Ion channels are of major interest and form an area of intensive research in the fields of biophysics and medicine since they control many vital physiological functions. The aim of this work is on one hand to propose a fully stochastic and…

Analytic estimates for the forces and free energy generated by bilayer deformation reveal a compelling and intuitive model for MscL channel gating analogous to the nucleation of a second phase. We argue that the competition between…

We present a simple one-dimensional trapping model prompted by the problem of ion current across biological membranes. The trap is modeled mimicking the ionic channel membrane behaviour. Such voltage-sensitive channels are open or closed…

The study of selection and gating in potassium channels is a very important issue in modern biology. Indeed such structures are known in all types of cells in all organisms where they play many important functional roles. The mechanism of…

A simple theory of ion permeation through a channel is presented, in which diffusion occurs according to Fick's law and drift according to Ohm's law, in the electric field determined by all the charges present. This theory accounts for…

Mechanosensitive ion transport plays a central role in enabling living systems to perceive and adapt to their environment through the deformation of soft, embedded ion channels. In this work, we demonstrate that ion transport within a…

Many ion channels spontaneously switch between different levels of activity. Although this behaviour known as modal gating has been observed for a long time it is currently not well understood. Despite the fact that appropriately…

The movement of ionic solutions is an essential part of biology and technology. Fluidics, from nano- to micro- to microfluidics, is a burgeoning area of technology which is all about the movement of ionic solutions, on various scales. Many…

Voltage-dependent ion channels determine the electric properties of axonal cell membranes. They not only allow the passage of ions through the cell membrane but also contribute to an additional charging of the cell membrane resulting in the…

The opening rate of voltage-gated potassium ion channels exhibits a characteristic, knee-like turnover where the common exponential voltage-dependence changes suddenly into a linear one. An explanation of this puzzling crossover is put…

Significant success has been achieved in fabricating angstrom-scale artificial solid ionic channels aiming to replicate the biological ion channels (BICs).Besides high selectivity, BICs also exhibit sophisticated ion gating and interplay.…

We revisit the theory of ion transport in parallel-plate channels and also discuss how the wettability of a solid and the mobility of adsorbed surface charges impact the transport of ions. It is shown that depending on the ratio of the…

Mechanoelectrical transduction in the inner ear is a biophysical process underlying the senses of hearing and balance. The key players involved in this process are mechanosensitive ion channels. They are located in the stereocilia of hair…

Electrostatic interaction between ions in an ionic channel and the charge fluctuations in the channel mouth are considered. It is shown that the charge fluctuations can be enhanced in the channels with low dielectric constant and result in…

In a mesoscopic conductor electric resistance is detected even if the device is defect-free. We engineer and study a cold-atom analog of a mesoscopic conductor. It consists of a narrow channel connecting two macroscopic reservoirs of…

Molecular Dynamics simulations of water molecules in nanometre sized cylindrical channels connecting two reservoirs show that the permeation of water is very sensitive to the channel radius and to electric polarization of the embedding…

Membranes are ubiquitous in nature with primary functions that include adaptive filtering and selective transport of chemical and molecular species. Being critical to cellular functions, they are also fundamental in many areas of science…

Much progress has been made in elucidating the inner workings of voltage-gated ion channels, but less understood is the influence of lipid rafts on gating kinetics. Here we propose that state-dependent channel affinity for different lipid…

Collective transport through channels shows surprising properties under one-dimensional confinement: particles in a single file exhibit sub-diffusive behavior, while liquid confinement causes distance-independent correlations between the…