Ion Channels and Their Inhibitors
Being the crucial components of living cells, ion channels are important targets of therapeutic agents. Historically, it has been challenging to develop drugs on this target class. A major issue with target based ion channel drug development is the identi
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Satya Prakash Gupta Editor
Ion Channels and Their Inhibitors
Editor Prof. Satya Prakash Gupta Department of Applied Sciences Meerut Institute of Engineering and Technology Meerut 250005 India [email protected]
ISBN 978-3-642-19921-9 e-ISBN 978-3-642-19922-6 DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-19922-6 Springer Heidelberg Dordrecht London New York Library of Congress Control Number: 2011931782 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or in any other way, and storage in data banks. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the German Copyright Law of September 9, 1965, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer. Violations are liable to prosecution under the German Copyright Law. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. Cover design: eStudio Calamar S.L. Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)
Preface
As is well known, ion channels are crucial components of living cells. The physiological function of ion channels had been observed long before they were known to exist. They figure in a wide variety of biological processes that involve changes in cells, such as cardiac, skeletal, and smooth muscle contraction, epithelial transport of nutrients and ions, T-cell activation, and pancreatic b-cell insulin release. Thus being the crucial components of living cells, ion channels are important targets of therapeutic agents. Historically, it has been challenging to develop drugs on this target class. A major issue with target-based ion channel drug development is identification of good small chemical leads for medicinal chemistry optimization to clinical candidate status. Thus, enough attention has been paid to the study of structure and functions of ion channels and their potential inhibitors. The present book compiles a few important articles authored by eminent workers in the field to cover some recent advances in the studies on the structure and functions of some ion channels, e.g., Na+, K+, Ca2+, Cl , and their inhibitors. The book may be of great use to the students and scientists working in the area of molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, and neurobiology. The book contains 11 articles in total. Ion channels, in fact, are transmembrane proteins that selectively allow a given species of ion to pass through them. In Chap. 1 entitled Structural and Functional Discrimination of Membrane Proteins, Gromiha et al. discuss all aspects of these membrane proteins right from their structural discrimination to resulting
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