Proteins, channels and crowded ions

Ion channels are proteins with a hole down their middle that control a vast range of biological function in health and disease. Selectivity is an important biological function determined by the open channel, which does not change conformation on the biological time scale. The challenge is to predict the function-the current of ions of different types and concentrations through a variety of channels-from structure, given fundamental physical laws. Walls of ion channels, like active sites of enzymes, often contain several fixed charges. Those fixed charges demand counter ions nearby, and the density of those counter ions is very high, greater than 5 molar, because of the tiny volumes of the channel's pore. Physical chemists can now calculate the free energy per mole of salt solutions (e.g. the activity coefficient) from infinite dilution to saturation, even in ionic melts. Such calculations of a model of the L-type calcium channel show that the large energies needed to crowd charges into the channel can account for the substantial selectivity and complex properties found experimentally. The properties of such crowded charge are likely to be an important determinant of the properties of proteins in general because channels are nearly enzymes.