Posted by lettsscience on August 15, 2014 · 5 Comments
My PhD thesis entitled “Functional and Structural Studies of the Human Voltage-Gated Proton Channel” has recently been published online by the Rockefeller University website here. The Thesis covers six years of extensive research that I carried out in the Laboratory of Molecular Neurobiology and Biophysics at the Rockefeller University under the tutelage of Dr Roderick MacKinnon. … Continue reading →
Filed under Biochemistry, Biophysics, Hv, Ion channels, Physiology, Science, Voltage gating · Tagged with Biochemistry, Biophysics, human voltage-gated proton channel, membrane protein, NMR, reconstitution, thesis, voltage gating, voltage sensor domain, X-ray crystallography
Posted by lettsscience on June 27, 2012 · Leave a Comment
In this post I will discuss the role of human Hv1 channels in promoting the pathology and invasiveness of breast cancers. It is well known that cancer consists of normal cells gone awry. As cells age, they can accumulate mutations in their genomes and sometimes these mutations lead to unregulated growth and expansion. The unregulated, … Continue reading →
Filed under Biochemistry, Hv, Ion channels, Physiology, Science · Tagged with Breast Cancer, Cancer, cancer drug target, cancer treatment, human voltage-gated proton channel, ion channel physiology, metastasis, physiology, voltage-gated proton channel
Posted by lettsscience on June 20, 2012 · 1 Comment
In this post I will finish my series on alignments and homology models. Here, I will discuss three different biochemical studies of the voltage-gated proton channel (Hv) that help to delineate the boundaries of the S4 helix. First, I will discuss the structure of the coiled-coil, which limits where along the primary the sequence of … Continue reading →
Filed under Biochemistry, Hv, Ion channels, Review, Science, Voltage gating · Tagged with coiled-coil, gated ion channels, homology models, human voltage-gated proton channel, Hv, ion channels, molecular mechanism, Opinion, protein sequence, protein sequence alignments, protein structure function, S4 helix, science, voltage gating, voltage sensor domain, voltage-gated cation channels, voltage-gated proton channel
Posted by lettsscience on June 12, 2012 · 3 Comments
Although voltage-gated proton currents have been measured in cell membranes since the early 1980s (Tomas & Meech, 1982), the genes encoding the voltage-gated proton channels were not discovered until 2006 (Sasaki et al., 2006; Ramsey et al., 2006). What the gene sequence demonstrated was that Hv channels share sequence homology with the voltage-sensor domains (VSDs) of … Continue reading →
Filed under Biochemistry, Hv, Introductory Material, Ion channels, Review, Voltage gating · Tagged with coiled-coil, human voltage-gated proton channel, Hv, protein architechture, protein dimerization, protein sequence, Review, voltage gating, voltage sensor domain, voltage-gated cation channels, voltage-gated proton channel
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Posted by lettsscience on June 1, 2012 · 2 Comments
In this post, I will elaborate upon a statement I made in last week’s post. There, I discussed how important a proper alignment of the S4 helices in voltage sensor domains (VSDs) is for building accurate homology-based structural models of these domains. When discussing the potential alignments I stated that “since the different conformations of … Continue reading →
Filed under Biochemistry, Hv, Ion channels, Voltage gating · Tagged with gated ion channels, gating charge residues, human voltage-gated proton channel, Hv, ion channels, molecular mechanism, Opinion, protein sequence alignments, protein structure function, S4 helix, science, voltage gating, voltage sensor domain, voltage-gated cation channels, voltage-gated proton channel
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Posted by lettsscience on May 22, 2012 · 4 Comments
Recently, a number of papers have come out that have used sequence homology to generate structural models of human Hv1 (Musset et al,. 2010; Ramsey et al., 2010; Wood et al., 2012). These models have then been used for docking and molecular-dynamics simulations to try to extract some mechanistic insight into the channel function. In … Continue reading →
Filed under Biochemistry, Hv, Ion channels, Opinion, Voltage gating · Tagged with 6TM channels, homology models, human voltage-gated proton channel, Hv, Opinion, protein sequence alignments, protein structure function, science, voltage sensor domain, voltage-gated cation channels