Oscillations in the Activity of a Potassium Channel at the Presynaptic
Nerve Terminal.
Rahamimoff, Rami, Jackie Edry-Schiller, Merav Rubin-Fraenkel, Alexander
Butkevich, and Simona Ginsburg.
Department of Physiology and the Bernard Katz Minerva Center for Cell
Biophysics, Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School, P.O.Box 12272,
Jerusalem 91120, Israel and The Open University of Israel, P.O. Box 39328
Tel-Aviv, Israel, #Present Address: Department of Cell Physiology, Max Planck
Institute for Medical Research, Jahnstrasse 29, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany.
APStracts 2:0005N, 1995.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
1. Periodic oscillations were detected in the activity of single
macromolecules: potassium channels. 2. When potassium channels are repeatedly
activated in isolated patches from fused synaptosomes of Torpedo electric
organ, their behavior exhibits a departure from random activation. 3. The
departure from random behavior is demonstrated by the runs test and by the fit
to Poisson distribution. 4. Under appropriate experimental conditions, the
channels display periodic oscillations with a periodicity of approximately 20
seconds when activated at a rate of 1.25 Hz. 5. The oscillations do not arise
from sampling, recording or computational artifacts. 6. It is conceivable
that single channel oscillations play a role in the generation of membrane
oscillations and thus may contribute to the oscillatory behavior of the
nervous system.
Received 6 September 1994; accepted in final form 17 January 1995.
APS Manuscript Number J556-4.
Article publication pending J. Neurophysiol.
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1995 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 3 April 1995.