Living Transistors: a Physicist's View of Ion Channels

Details Living Transistors: a Physicist's View of Ion Channels Living Transistors: a Physicist's View of Ion Channels

2005-06-14

arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0506016v2

Biology

Quantitative Biology

Biomolecules

Scientific paper

Ion channels are proteins with a hole down the middle embedded in cell membranes. Membranes form insulating structures and the channels through them allow and control the movement of charged particles, spherical ions, mostly Na+, K+, Ca++, and Cl-. Membranes contain hundreds or thousands of types of channels, most of which are closed at any time. Channels control an enormous range of biological channel by opening and closing in response to specific stimuli by mechanisms that are not yet understood in physical language. Open channels conduct current of charged particles following laws of electrodiffusion rather like the laws of electrodiffusion of quasiparticles in semiconductors. Open channels select between similar ions using a combination of electrostatic and 'crowded charge' (Lennard-Jones) forces. Orbital delocalization does not seem to be involved in determining selectivity in the channels studied so far. Channels play a role in biology as important as transistors in computers, and they use rather similar physics to perform part of that role.

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