Intrinsically disordered C-terminal segments of voltage-activated potassium channels: A possible fishing rod-like mechanism for channel binding to scaffold proteins

Elhanan Magidovich, Sarel J. Fleishman, Ofer Yifrach

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

33 Scopus citations

Abstract

Membrane-embedded voltage-activated potassium channels (Kv) bind intracellular scaffold proteins, such as the Post Synaptic Density 95 (PSD-95) protein, using a conserved PDZ-binding motif located at the channels' C-terminal tip. This interaction underlies Kv-channel clustering, and is important for the proper assembly and functioning of the synapse. Here we demonstrate that the C-terminal segments of Kv channels adjacent to the PDZ-binding motif are intrinsically disordered. Phylogenetic analysis of the Kv channel family reveals a cluster of channel sequences belonging to three out of the four main channel families, for which an association is demonstrated between the presence of the consensus terminal PDZ-binding motif and the intrinsically disordered nature of the immediately adjacent C-terminal segment. Our observations, combined with a structural analogy to the N-terminal intra-molecular ball-and-chain mechanism for Kv channel inactivation, suggest that the C-terminal disordered segments of these channel families encode an inter-molecular fishing rod-like mechanism for K+ channel binding to scaffold proteins.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1546-1550
Number of pages5
JournalBioinformatics
Volume22
Issue number13
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jul 2006

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Statistics and Probability
  • Biochemistry
  • Molecular Biology
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Computational Theory and Mathematics
  • Computational Mathematics

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