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Charybdotoxin blocks both Ca-activated K channels and Ca-independent voltage-gated K channels in rat brain
M J Schneider1, R S Rogowski, B K Krueger
1Department of Physiology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore 21201.
FEBS Letters
|July 3, 1989
Abstract:
Charybdotoxin (ChTX), a 4.3 kDa polypeptide toxin from the venom of the scorpion Leiurus quinquestriatus, blocks both a Ca-activated K channel (IC50 approximately 15 nM) and a Ca-independent voltage-gated K channel (IC50 approximately 40 nM) in rat brain synaptosomes. These results indicate that in this preparation ChTX is not specific for the Ca-activated K channel and suggest that there may be structural homology among the toxin-binding sites on various types of K channels.