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SLC8A1
The sodium-calcium exchanger (often denoted Na+/Ca2+ exchanger, exchange protein, or NCX) is an antiporter membrane protein that removes calcium from cells. It uses the energy that is stored in the electrochemical gradient of sodium (Na+) by allowing Na+ to flow down its gradient across the plasma membrane in exchange for the countertransport of calcium ions (Ca2+). A single calcium ion is exported for the import of three sodium ions. The exchanger exists in many different cell types and animal species. The NCX is considered one of the most important cellular mechanisms for removing Ca2+. The exchanger is usually found in the plasma membranes and the mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum of excitable cells. Function The sodium–calcium exchanger is only one of the systems by which the cytoplasmic concentration of calcium ions in the cell is kept low. The exchanger does not bind very tightly to Ca2+ (has a low affinity), but it can transport the ions rapidly (has a high cap ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cardiac Action Potential
Unlike the action potential in skeletal muscle cells, the cardiac action potential is not initiated by nervous activity. Instead, it arises from a group of specialized cells known as pacemaker cells, that have automatic action potential generation capability. In healthy hearts, these cells form the cardiac pacemaker and are found in the sinoatrial node in the right atrium. They produce roughly 60–100 action potentials every minute. The action potential passes along the cell membrane causing the cell to contract, therefore the activity of the sinoatrial node results in a resting heart rate of roughly 60–100 beats per minute. All cardiac muscle cells are electrically linked to one another, by intercalated discs which allow the action potential to pass from one cell to the next. This means that all atrial cells can contract together, and then all ventricular cells. Rate dependence of the action potential is a fundamental property of cardiac cells and alterations can lead to se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antiporter
An antiporter (also called exchanger or counter-transporter) is an integral membrane protein that uses secondary active transport to move two or more molecules in opposite directions across a phospholipid membrane. It is a type of cotransporter, which means that uses the Exergonic reaction, energetically favorable movement of one molecule down its electrochemical gradient to power the Endergonic reaction, energetically unfavorable movement of another molecule up its electrochemical gradient. This is in contrast to symporters, which are another type of cotransporter that moves two or more ions in the same direction, and primary active transport, which is directly powered by Adenosine triphosphate, ATP. Transport may involve one or more of each type of solute. For example, the Sodium-calcium exchanger, Na+/Ca2+ exchanger, found in the plasma membrane of many cells, moves three sodium ions in one direction, and one calcium ion in the other. As with sodium in this example, antiport ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Excitation-contraction Coupling
Muscle contraction is the activation of tension-generating sites within muscle cells. In physiology, muscle contraction does not necessarily mean muscle shortening because muscle tension can be produced without changes in muscle length, such as when holding something heavy in the same position. The termination of muscle contraction is followed by muscle relaxation, which is a return of the muscle fibers to their low tension-generating state. For the contractions to happen, the muscle cells must rely on the change in action of two types of filaments: thin and thick filaments. The major constituent of thin filaments is a chain formed by helical coiling of two strands of actin, and thick filaments dominantly consist of chains of the motor-protein myosin. Together, these two filaments form myofibrils - the basic functional organelles in the skeletal muscle system. In vertebrates, skeletal muscle contractions are neurogenic as they require synaptic input from motor neurons. A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
X-ray Crystallography
X-ray crystallography is the experimental science of determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to Diffraction, diffract in specific directions. By measuring the angles and intensities of the X-ray diffraction, a crystallography, crystallographer can produce a three-dimensional picture of the density of electrons within the crystal and the positions of the atoms, as well as their chemical bonds, crystallographic disorder, and other information. X-ray crystallography has been fundamental in the development of many scientific fields. In its first decades of use, this method determined the size of atoms, the lengths and types of chemical bonds, and the atomic-scale differences between various materials, especially minerals and alloys. The method has also revealed the structure and function of many biological molecules, including vitamins, drugs, proteins and nucleic acids such as DNA. X-ray crystall ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archaea
Archaea ( ) is a Domain (biology), domain of organisms. Traditionally, Archaea only included its Prokaryote, prokaryotic members, but this has since been found to be paraphyletic, as eukaryotes are known to have evolved from archaea. Even though the domain Archaea Cladistics, cladistically includes eukaryotes, the term "archaea" (: archaeon , from the Greek "ἀρχαῖον", which means ancient) in English still generally refers specifically to prokaryotic members of Archaea. Archaea were initially Taxonomy (biology), classified as bacteria, receiving the name archaebacteria (, in the Archaebacteria Kingdom (biology), kingdom), but this term has fallen out of use. Archaeal cells have unique properties separating them from Bacteria and Eukaryote, Eukaryota. Archaea are further divided into multiple recognized phylum, phyla. Classification is difficult because most have not been Isolation (microbiology), isolated in a laboratory and have been detected only by their Gene, gene s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
C2 Domain
A C2 domain is a protein structural domain involved in targeting proteins to cell membranes. The typical version (PKC-C2) has a beta-sandwich composed of 8 β-strands that co-ordinates two or three calcium ions, which bind in a cavity formed by the first and final loops of the domain, on the membrane binding face. Many other C2 domain families don't have calcium binding activity. Coupling with other domains C2 domains are frequently found coupled to enzymatic domains; for example, the C2 domain in PTEN, brings the phosphatase domain into contact with the plasma membrane, where it can dephosphorylate its substrate, phosphatidylinositol (3,4,5)-trisphosphate (PIP3), without removing it from the membrane - which would be energetically very costly. PTEN consists of two domains, a protein tyrosine phosphatase domain and a C2 domain. This domain pair constitutes a superdomain, a heritable unit that is found in various proteins in fungi, plants and animals. In addition, phosphatidyli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene Duplication
Gene duplication (or chromosomal duplication or gene amplification) is a major mechanism through which new genetic material is generated during molecular evolution. It can be defined as any duplication of a region of DNA that contains a gene. Gene duplications can arise as products of several types of errors in DNA replication and repair machinery as well as through fortuitous capture by selfish genetic elements. Common sources of gene duplications include ectopic recombination, retrotransposition event, aneuploidy, polyploidy, and replication slippage. Mechanisms of duplication Ectopic recombination Duplications arise from an event termed unequal crossing-over that occurs during meiosis between misaligned homologous chromosomes. The chance of it happening is a function of the degree of sharing of repetitive elements between two chromosomes. The products of this recombination are a duplication at the site of the exchange and a reciprocal deletion. Ectopic recombina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transmembrane Domain
A transmembrane domain (TMD, TM domain) is a membrane-spanning protein domain. TMDs may consist of one or several alpha-helices or a transmembrane beta barrel. Because the interior of the lipid bilayer is hydrophobic, the amino acid residues in TMDs are often hydrophobic, although proteins such as membrane pumps and ion channels can contain polar residues. TMDs vary greatly in size and hydrophobicity; they may adopt organelle-specific properties. Functions of transmembrane domains Transmembrane domains are known to perform a variety of functions. These include: * Anchoring transmembrane proteins to the membrane. *Facilitating molecular transport of molecules such as ions and proteins across biological membranes; usually hydrophilic residues and binding sites in the TMDs help in this process. *Signal transduction across the membrane; many transmembrane proteins, such as G protein-coupled receptors, receive extracellular signals. TMDs then propagate those signals across the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydrophobicity Scales
Hydrophobicity scales are values that define the relative hydrophobicity or hydrophilicity of amino acid residues. The more positive the value, the more hydrophobic are the amino acids located in that region of the protein. These scales are commonly used to predict the Transmembrane domain, transmembrane alpha-helices of membrane proteins. When consecutively measuring amino acids of a protein, changes in value indicate attraction of specific protein regions towards the hydrophobic region inside lipid bilayer. The hydrophobic or hydrophilic character of a compound or amino acid is its hydropathic character, hydropathicity, or hydropathy. Hydrophobicity and the hydrophobic effect The hydrophobic effect represents the tendency of water#Properties, water to exclude non-polar molecules. The effect originates from the disruption of highly dynamic hydrogen bonds between molecules of liquid water. Polar chemical groups, such as OH group in methanol do not cause the hydrophobic effect. Ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protein Structure Prediction
Protein structure prediction is the inference of the three-dimensional structure of a protein from its amino acid sequence—that is, the prediction of its Protein secondary structure, secondary and Protein tertiary structure, tertiary structure from Protein primary structure, primary structure. Structure prediction is different from the inverse problem of protein design. Protein structure prediction is one of the most important goals pursued by computational biology and addresses Levinthal's paradox. Accurate structure prediction has important applications in medicine (for example, in drug design) and biotechnology (for example, in novel enzyme design). Starting in 1994, the performance of current methods is assessed biannually in the ''Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction'' (CASP) experiment. A continuous evaluation of protein structure prediction web servers is performed by the community project ''Continuous Automated Model EvaluatiOn'' (CAMEO3D). Protein structure a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sodium–potassium Pump
The sodium–potassium pump (sodium–potassium adenosine triphosphatase, also known as -ATPase, pump, or sodium–potassium ATPase) is an enzyme (an electrogenic transmembrane ATPase) found in the membrane of all animal cells. It performs several functions in cell physiology. The -ATPase enzyme is active (i.e. it uses energy from ATP). For every ATP molecule that the pump uses, three sodium ions are exported and two potassium ions are imported. Thus, there is a net export of a single positive charge per pump cycle. The net effect is an extracellular concentration of sodium ions which is 5 times the intracellular concentration, and an intracellular concentration of potassium ions which is 30 times the extracellular concentration. The sodium–potassium pump was discovered in 1957 by the Danish scientist Jens Christian Skou, who was awarded a Nobel Prize for his work in 1997. Its discovery marked an important step forward in the understanding of how ions get into ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digoxin
Digoxin (better known as digitalis), sold under the brand name Lanoxin among others, is a medication used to treat various heart disease, heart conditions. Most frequently it is used for atrial fibrillation, atrial flutter, and heart failure. Digoxin is one of the oldest medications used in the field of cardiology. It works by increasing myocardial contractility, increasing stroke volume and blood pressure, reducing heart rate, and somewhat extending the time frame of the Muscle contraction, contraction. Digoxin is taken by mouth or by intravenous, injection into a vein. Digoxin has a half life of approximately 36 hours given at average doses in patients with normal renal function. It is excreted mostly unchanged in the urine. Common side effects include gynecomastia, breast enlargement with other side effects generally due to an excessive dose. These side effects may include loss of appetite, nausea, trouble seeing, confusion, and an Heart arrhythmia, irregular heartbeat. Gre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
