Percolation model of ionic channel dynamics
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Updated: Aug 10, 2026

Recapitulation of an Ion Channel IV Curve Using Frequency Components
Published on: February 8, 2011
W Doster1, W Schirmacher, M Settles
1Technische Universität München, Physik-Department E13, Federal Republic of Germany.
Abstract:
The nonexponential closed-time distributions observed for ionic channels have been explained recently by quasi-one-dimensional models of structural diffusion (Millhauser, G. L., E. E. Salpeter, and R. E. Oswald. 1988. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. 85: 1503-1507; Condat, C. A., and J. Jäckle. 1989. Biophys. J. 55: 915-925; Levitt, D. G. 1989. Biophys. J. 55: 489-498). We generalize this treatment by allowing for more complex trajectories using percolation theory. We assume that the gating transition depends on marginally connected conformational states leading to the observed spread in time scales.
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