Sodium Channel

1. Sodium Channel The sodium channel is a channel present on the membrane that allows a small amount of Na+ to enter the cell along its electrochemical gradient, as discovered by British scientists Hodgkin and Huxley. It can be divided into two types, voltage-gated and ligand-gated. The sodium ion channel is the primary activation bond for electrical signals in all animals, while the electrical signal is the basis for a series of physiological processes such as neural activity and muscle contraction. In the human body, there are nine known voltage-gated sodium ion channel subtypes that play roles in different organs and physiological processes. Abnormalities in the sodium channel can lead to a range of neurological, muscular, and cardiovascular-related diseases, particularly epilepsy, arrhythmia, and persistent pain, or inability to sense pain, etc. So far, one thousand in the nine sodium channel proteins in the human body have been found. Multiple point mutations are associated with known diseases. In addition, sodium channel is also a direct target of many local anesthetics and many neurotoxins in nature. Many snake venoms, scorpion venoms, and spider toxins all have adverse effects on sodium channels. In 2017, the Yan Ning research group of Tsinghua University Medical School took the first “3D photo” for the sodium channel using a “camera” called a cryo-electron microscope. In its paper "Three-dimensional Structure of Near-Atomic Resolution of Voltage-Controlled Sodium Ion Channels in Eukaryotes", the 3.8-resolution cryo-electron microscopy structure of voltage-gated sodium ion channels in eukaryotes was first reported. It has greatly helped humans understand the structure of sodium channels.