Abstract Acetylcholine
receptors (AChRs) are channels that regulate the flow of ions at
synapses. Single-channel kinetic (phi-value) analysis suggests that
AChR gating occurs as a "Brownian conformational wave",
in which nanometer-sized chunks of protein jiggle back-and-forth
on sub-microsecond time scales, to link the stable C and O ground
states of the reaction. A specific reaction mechanism for AChR gating
will be proposed, and a method that relates phi-values to the transition
state energy landscape will be described. |