We have studied the effect of N-bromoacetamide (NBA) on the behavior of single sodium channel currents in excised patches of rat myotube membrane at 10 degree C. Inward sodium currents were activated by voltage steps from holding potentials of about -100 mV to test potentials of -40 mV. The cytoplasmic-face solution was isotonic CsF. Application of NBA or pronase to the cytoplasmic face of the ...

In the interest of continuing structure-function studies, highly purified sodium channel preparations from the eel electroplax were incorporated into planar lipid bilayers in the presence of veratridine. This lipoglycoprotein originates from muscle-derived tissue and consists of a single polypeptide. In this study it is shown to have properties analogous to sodium channels from another muscle t...

Regulation of sodium flux across the cell membrane plays a vital role in the generation of action potentials and regulation of membrane excitability in cells such as cardiomyocytes and neurons. Alteration of sodium channel function has been implicated in diseases such as epilepsy, long QT syndrome, and heart failure. However, single cell imaging of sodium dynamics has been limited due to the na...

β subunits of mammalian sodium channels play important roles in modulating the expression and gating of mammalian sodium channels. However, there are no orthologs of β subunits in insects. Instead, an unrelated protein, TipE in Drosophila melanogaster and its orthologs in other insects, is thought to be a sodium channel auxiliary subunit. In addition, there are four TipE-homologous genes (TEH1-...

INTRODUCTION Fever can increase the susceptibility to supraventricular and ventricular arrhythmias, in which sodium channel dysfunction has been implicated. Whether fever influences the efficacy of sodium channel blocking drugs is unknown. The current study was designed to investigate the temperature dependent effects of distinct sodium channel blocking drugs on the sodium currents in human ind...

We measured the time course of sodium entry during action potentials of mouse central neurons at 37 degrees C to examine how efficiently sodium entry is coupled to depolarization. In cortical pyramidal neurons, sodium entry was nearly completely confined to the rising phase of the spike: only approximately 25% more sodium enters than the theoretical minimum necessary for spike depolarization. H...

PURPOSE Voltage-gated sodium channels (VGSCs) are drug targets for the treatment of epilepsy. Recently, a decreased risk of cancer associated with sodium channel-blocking antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) has become a research focus of interest. The purpose of this study was to test the hypothesis that the use of sodium channel-blocking AEDs are inversely associated with cancer, using different method...