External [K+] and the block of the K+ inward rectifier by external Cs+ in frog skeletal muscle

Biophys J. 1986 Oct;50(4):677-83. doi: 10.1016/S0006-3495(86)83508-1.

Abstract

Frog skeletal muscle has a K+ channel called the inward rectifier, which passes inward current more readily than outward current. Gay and Stanfield (1977) described a voltage-dependent block of inward K+ currents through the inward rectifier by external Cs+ in frog muscle. Here, frog single muscle fibers were voltage clamped using the vaseline-gap voltage-clamp technique to study the effect of external [K+] on the voltage-dependent block of inward K+ currents through the inward rectifier by external Cs+. The block of inward K+ currents through the channel by external Cs+ was found to depend on external [K+], such that increasing the external concentration of the permeant ion K+ potentiated the block produced by the impermeant external Cs+. These findings are not consistent with a one-ion channel model for the inward rectifier. The Eyring rate theory formalism for channels, viewed as single-file multi-ion pores (Hille and Schwarz, 1978), was used to develop a two-site multi-ion model for the inward rectifier. This model successfully reproduced the experimentally observed potentiation of the Cs+ block of the channel by external K+, thus lending further support to the view of the inward rectifier as a multi-ion channel.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Cesium / pharmacology*
  • In Vitro Techniques
  • Ion Channels / drug effects
  • Ion Channels / physiology*
  • Kinetics
  • Muscles / drug effects
  • Muscles / physiology*
  • Potassium / metabolism*
  • Potassium / pharmacology
  • Ranidae

Substances

  • Ion Channels
  • Cesium
  • Potassium