Bacterial mechanosensitive channels: integrating physiology, structure and function

When confronted with hypo-osmotic stress, many bacterial species are able rapidly to adapt to the increase in cell turgor pressure by jettisoning cytoplasmic solutes into the medium through membrane-tension-gated channels. Physiological studies have confirmed the importance of these channels in osmoregulation. Mutagenesis of one of these channels, combined with structural information derived from X-ray crystallography, has given the first clues of how a mechanosensitive channel senses and responds to membrane tension.