The voltage-gated sodium channel is the primary target site of pyrethroids, which constitute a major class of insecticides used worldwide. Pyrethroids prolong the opening of sodium channels by inhibiting deactivation and inactivation. Despite numerous attempts to characterize pyrethroid binding to sodium channels in the past several decades, the molecular determinants of the pyrethroid binding ...

Alternative splicing is a major mechanism by which potassium and calcium channels increase functional diversity in animals. Extensive alternative splicing of the para sodium channel gene and developmental regulation of alternative splicing have been reported in Drosophila species. Alternative splicing has also been observed for several mammalian voltage-gated sodium channel genes. However, the ...

The epithelial sodium channel (ENaC) mediates passive sodium transport across the apical membranes of sodium absorbing epithelia, like the distal nephron, the intestine, and the lung airways. Additionally, the channel has been involved in the transduction of mechanical stimuli, such as hydrostatic pressure, membrane stretch, and shear stress from fluid flow. Thus, in vascular endothelium, it pa...

Nerve conduction in unmyelinated fibers has long been described based on the equivalent circuit model and cable theory. However, without the change in ionic concentration gradient across the membrane, there would be no generation or propagation of the action potential. Based on this concept, we employ a new conductive model focusing on the distribution of voltage-gated sodium ion channels and C...

Human studies have firmly implicated voltage-gated sodium channels in human pain disorders, and targeted and massively parallel genomic sequencing is beginning to be used in clinical practice to determine which sodium channel variants are involved. Missense substitutions of SCN9A, the gene encoding sodium channel NaV1.7, SCN10A, the gene encoding sodium channel NaV1.8, and SCN11A, the gene enco...

613 Introduction The opening of eukaryotic sodium channels initiates the action potential in excitable tissues (Hille, 2001). The entire action potential functional cycle includes opening, closing, and inactivation of the sodium channels (Nav), and the closely coordinated functioning of potassium and calcium ion channels and sodium potassium ATPase pumps. These processes are essential in the fu...

We studied the dose-response relationship between gamma radiation and batrachotoxin-stimulated sodium influx in neuroblastoma cells in tissue culture. We also tested the hypothesis that changes in sodium channel conformation may alter the radiosensitivity of the channel. We found that gamma radiation inhibited toxin-stimulated 22Na uptake at doses beyond a threshold of 200-300 Gy. No effects we...

Squid optic nerve sodium channels were characterized in planar bilayers in the presence of batrachotoxin (BTX). The channel exhibits a conductance of 20 pS in symmetrical 200 mM NaCl and behaves as a sodium electrode. The single-channel conductance saturates with increasing the concentration of sodium and the channel conductance vs. sodium concentration relation is well described by a simple re...

BACKGROUND Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), caused by mutations in the dystrophin gene, is associated with severe cardiac complications including cardiomyopathy and cardiac arrhythmias. Recent research suggests that impaired voltage-gated ion channels in dystrophic cardiomyocytes accompany cardiac pathology. It is, however, unknown if the ion channel defects are primary effects of dystrophic ...