Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0019829 (Hodgkin's disease)
 30,247 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

The mechanisms underlying many of the processes studied by membrane biophysicists are inherently probabilistic, and therefore exhibit random fluctuations around the mean of behavior. These fluctuations reflect the underlying probabilistic mechanism and therefore can sometimes provide information, not otherwise available, about these mechanisms. Fluctuations may be characterized by their spectra which are obtained from a Fourier analysis of the experimental records. When a theory for membrane processes is available, it makes predictions about fluctuation spectra and therefore may be tested by examining these spectra. Theories about gating behavior at the frog neuromuscular junction have been tested in this way, and it has been possible, in addition, to estimate the conductance of one open channel, a quantity not susceptible to direct measurements. Various physical pictures are capable of yielding the same macroscopic behavior for axon membranes, that is, the Hodgkin-Huxley equations, but these various mechanisms predict that the current fluctuations around their mean values should have different characteristics. Fluctuation analysis may, then be of value in elucidating the physical basis for axon conductance changes.
 ...
PMID:Principles and applications of fluctuation analysis: a nonmathematical introduction. 112 92

Inhibitory Cl- -mediated currents through cholinergic channels on the soma of identified neurones from the right parietal ganglion of Helix aspersa were studied under voltage clamp. Voltage-jump relaxation analysis showed that these currents decreased with hyperpolarization. In 3 microM-acetylcholine (ACh), the normalized fraction of channels in the open configuration (rho) decreased e-fold with each 191 mV of membrane hyperpolarization. The steady-state membrane conductance, G(infinity), decreased e-fold with each 128 mV of membrane hyperpolarization. The difference in the voltage sensitivities of rho and G(infinity) arose because of the voltage sensitivity of the instantaneous membrane conductance, G(0). G(0) rectified in the direction predicted by the Goldman-Hodgkin-Katz conductance model. The degree of rectification decreased when the internal Cl- concentration was raised. The relaxing currents were composed of two exponential components. At membrane potential (Vm) = -160 mV, 12 degrees C, the time constants of the two components were 4.1 ms and 21 ms in 3 microM-ACh, and 3.6 ms and 18 ms in 100 microM-tetramethylammonium (TMA). Fluctuation analysis in neurones loaded with Cl- yielded spectra which were composed of two Lorentzian components. In 3 microM-ACh the mean single-channel conductance (gamma) appeared to rise from a low value observed in cells with normal intracellular Cl- to 2.7 pS in cells whose internal Cl- concentration was raised four-fold. The voltage sensitivity of rho was attributed to the conformational change step of a gating mechanism having three kinetically distinguishable states.
 ...
PMID:A cholinergic chloride conductance in neurones of Helix aspersa. 631 49