Researchers at Case Western Reserve University had an article titled “Crystal structure and dynamics of a lipid-induced potential desensitized-state of a pentameric ligand-gated channel” published in eLIFE.
The authors were:
- Sandip Basak, a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics;
- Nicolaus Schmandt (MED ‘16), a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Chicago;
- Yvonne Gicheru, a PhD student in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics; and
- Sudha Chakrapani, assistant professor of physiology and biophysics.
The researchers showed how docosahexaenoic acid affects bacterial pentameric ligand-gated ion channels in the same way as it affects human channels—by enhancing desensitization.