Voltage-gated ion channels are well known for their functional roles in excitable tissues. Excitable tissues rely on voltage-gated ion channels and their auxiliary subunits to achieve concerted electrical activity in living cells. Auxiliary subunits are also known to provide functional diversity towards the transport and biogenesis properties of the principal subunits. Recent interests in pharmacological properties of these auxiliary subunits have prompted significant amounts of efforts in understanding their physiological roles. Some auxiliary subunits can potentially serve as drug targets for novel analgesics. Three families of sodium channel auxiliary subunits are described here: beta1 and beta3, beta2 and beta4, and temperature-induced paralytic E (TipE). While sodium channel beta-subunits are encoded in many animal genomes, TipE has only been found exclusively in insects. In this review, we present phylogenetic analyses, discuss potential evolutionary origins and functional data available for each of these subunits. For each family, we also correlate the functional specificity with the history of evolution for the individual auxiliary subunits.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000099646 | DOI Listing |
J Biol Chem
January 2025
Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, CO 80045; Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville, VA 22903. Electronic address:
The mitochondrial Ca uniporter is the Ca channel responsible for mitochondrial Ca uptake. It plays crucial physiological roles in regulating oxidative phosphorylation, intracellular Ca signaling, and cell death. The uniporter contains the pore-forming MCU subunit, the auxiliary EMRE protein, and the regulatory MICU1 subunit, which blocks the MCU pore under resting cellular Ca concentrations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnn Clin Lab Sci
November 2024
Department of Laboratory Medicine, Linyi People's Hospital, Linyi, Shandong, China
Objective: C-X-C motif chemokine receptor 2 (CXCR2) plays a crucial role in inflammation and immunity, and the involvement of chemokine receptors in the tumor microenvironment is extensively documented. However, the impact of CXCR2 deficiency on the complete transcriptome, including mRNA and ncRNAs, in tumor cells remains unclear.
Methods: In this study, we aimed to identify differentially expressed (DE) messenger RNA (mRNAs), long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs), and circular RNAs (circRNAs) in CXCR2 knockout HeLa cells through transcriptome sequencing and to construct regulatory networks.
Plant Biotechnol J
January 2025
Center for Plant Water-use and Nutrition Regulation and College of JunCao Science and Ecology, Joint International Research Laboratory of Water and Nutrient in Crop, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China.
Heat stress significantly impacts global rice production, highlighting the critical need to understand the genetic basis of heat resistance in rice. U2AF (U2 snRNP auxiliary factor) is an essential splicing complex with critical roles in recognizing the 3'-splice site of precursor messenger RNAs (pre-mRNAs). The U2AF small subunit (U2AF35) can bind to the 3'-AG intron border and promote U2 snRNP binding to the branch-point sequences of introns through interaction with the U2AF large subunit (U2AF65).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNature
January 2025
Department of Neurobiology, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
Type A GABA (γ-aminobutyric acid) receptors (GABA receptors) mediate most fast inhibitory signalling in the brain and are targets for drugs that treat epilepsy, anxiety, depression and insomnia and for anaesthetics. These receptors comprise a complex array of 19 related subunits, which form pentameric ligand-gated ion channels. The composition and structure of native GABA receptors in the human brain have been inferred from subunit localization in tissue, functional measurements and structural analysis from recombinant expression and in mice.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAutism Res
January 2025
Center for Medical Genetics and Hunan key Laboratory of Medical Genetics, MOE Key Laboratory of Rare Pediatric Disease, School of Life Sciences, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan, China.
Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) encompass a group of conditions that impact brain development and function, exhibiting significant genetic and clinical heterogeneity. NAA15, the auxiliary subunit of the N-terminal acetyltransferase complex, has garnered attention due to its association with NDDs. However, the precise role of NAA15 in cortical development and its contribution to NDDs remain elusive.
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