Related papers: Statistical Theory of Selectivity and Conductivity…
We introduce a statistical and linear response theory of selective conduction in biological ion channels with multiple binding sites and possible point mutations. We derive an effective grand-canonical ensemble and generalised Einstein…
Ion channels are specific proteins present in the membranes of living cells. They control the flow of specific ions through a cell, initiated by an ion channel's electrochemical gradient. In doing so, they control important physiological…
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…
Classical molecular dynamics and electro-diffusion theories have achieved profound success in elucidating ion selectivity and gating mechanisms. However, reconciling strict selectivity with high flux permeation in Angstrom-scaled biological…
We demonstrate that two mechanisms used by biological ion channels to select particles by size are driven by entropy. With uncharged particles in an infinite cylinder, we show that a channel that attracts particles is small-particle…
In this work, we present a quantum transport model for the selectivity filter in the KcsA potassium ion channel. This model is fully consistent with the fact that two conduction pathways are involved in the translocation of ions thorough…
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…
Potassium channels play critical roles in many physiological processes, providing a selective permeation route for K+ ions in and out of a cell, by employing a carefully designed selectivity filter, evolutionarily conserved from viruses to…
The Hurst effect in the signals describing ion channels' activity has been known for many years. This effect is present in the experimental recordings of single-channel currents, but not only. The sequences of dwell times of functionally…
We study the effect of intracellular ion diffusion on ionic currents permeating through the cell membrane. Ion flux across the cell membrane is mediated by special proteins forming specific channels. The structure of potassium channels have…
We introduce a self-consistent multi-species kinetic theory based on the structure of the narrow voltage-gated potassium channel. Transition rates depend on a complete energy spectrum with contributions including the dehydration amongst…
Many biological and artificial transport channels function without direct input of metabolic energy during a transport event and without structural rearrangements involving transitions from a 'closed' to an 'open' state. Nevertheless, such…
Potassium (K$^+$) channels regulate the flux of K$^+$ ions through cell membranes and plays significant roles in many physiological functions. This work studies the KcsA potassium channel, including the selectivity and current-voltage (IV)…
In this paper, we investigate the effect of noise and disorder on the efficiency of excitation energy transfer (EET) in a $N=5$ sites linear chain with "static" dipole-dipole couplings. In fact, here, the disordered chain is a toy model for…
Ion channels are membrane proteins responsible for an enormous range of biological functions. Ion selectivity and permeation are based on simple laws of physics and chemistry. Ion channels are therefore ideal candidates for physical…
Recently, it has been suggested that ion channel selectivity filter may exhibit quantum coherence, which may be appropriate to explain ion selection and conduction processes. Potassium channels play a vital role in many physiological…
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…
We investigate the outflux of ions through the channels in a cell membrane. The channels undergo an open/close cycle according to a periodic schedule. Our study is based both on theoretical considerations relying on homogenization theory,…
Potassium (K-) channels catalyze K+ ion permeation across cellular membranes while simultaneously discriminating their permeation over Na+ ions by more than a factor of a thousand. Structural studies show bare K+ ions occupying the…
Ion-selective channels play a key role in physiological processes and are used in many technologies. While biological channels can efficiently separate same-charge ions with similar hydration shells, it remains a challenge to mimic such…