Issue Archive

Unique interactions between scorpion toxins and small conductance Ca2+-activated potassium channels

Yang Fan, CHEN Zong-Yun, WU Ying-Liang

1State Key Laboratory of Virology, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China； 2Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Medicinal Macromolecular Laboratory, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Hubei University of Medicine, Shiyan 442000, China

Abstract

Small conductance Ca2+-activated potassium channels (SK channels) distributing in the nervous system play an important role in learning, memory and synaptic plasticity. Most pharmacological properties of them are determined by short-chain scorpion toxins. Different from most voltage-gated potassium channels and large-conductance Ca2+-activated potassium channels, SK channels are only inhibited by a small quantity of scorpion toxins. Recently, a novel peptide screener in the extracellular pore entryway of SK channels was considered as the structural basis of toxin selective recognition. In this review, we summarized the unique interactions between scorpion toxins and SK channels, which is crucial not only in deep-researching for physiological function of SK channels, but also in developing drugs for SK channel-related diseases.

Key words: protein-protein interaction; peptide screener; potassium channel; α-KTx

Received: 2014-07-01　　Accepted: 2014-08-26

Corresponding author: 陈宗运,吴英亮　　E-mail: ylwu@whu.edu.cn, chenzy2005@126.com

Citing This Article：

Yang Fan, CHEN Zong-Yun, WU Ying-Liang. Unique interactions between scorpion toxins and small conductance Ca2+-activated potassium channels. Acta Physiol Sin 2015; 67 (3): 255-260 (in Chinese with English abstract).