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Oligomeric interaction between ryanodine receptors: potential role in Ca~(2+) release

Hu Xiaofang, Zhu Peihong, Hu Jun

Nanobiology Laboratory, College of Life Science and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiaotong University.Shanghai 200240；China

Abstract

Receptor proteins in both eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells often form regular lattice or array in the membrane. Recent theoretical analyses indicate that such arrays may provide a novel mechanism for receptor signaling regulation in cells. The functional coupling between neighboring receptors could improve the signaling performance. The ryanodine receptors (RyR)/calcium release channels usually form 2-D regular lattice in the endoplasmic/sarcoplasmic reticulum membranes. Thus, RyR is a potentially good model to study the function of receptor 2-D array. In this article, we briefly review recent progresses in this research field, including RyR-RyR interaction, RyR array's function and working mechanisms. The investigations performed by new methods in our laboratory are summarized. We demonstrate that the RyR-RyR interaction is modulated by the functional states of RyRs. Accordingly, the mechanism of "dynamic coupling" of RyR array is proposed. Its possible role in RyR-mediated Ca~(2+) release is discussed.

Key words: ryanodine receptor, 2-D array;RyR-RyR interaction;coupled gating;dynamic coupling ;

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Citing This Article：

Hu Xiaofang, Zhu Peihong, Hu Jun. Oligomeric interaction between ryanodine receptors: potential role in Ca~(2+) release. Acta Physiol Sin 2006; 58 (4): (in Chinese with English abstract).