Voltage-gated sodium (Nav) channels and their Na⁺/K⁺ selectivity are of great importance in the mammalian neuronal signaling. According to mutational analysis, the Na⁺/K⁺ selectivity in mammalian Nav channels is mainly determined by the Lys and Asp/Glu residues located at the constriction site within the selectivity filter. Despite successful molecular dynamics simulations conducted on the prokaryotic Nav channels, the lack of Lys at the constriction site of prokaryotic Nav channels limits how much can be learned about the Na⁺/K⁺ selectivity in mammalian Nav channels. In this work, we modeled the mammalian Nav channel by mutating the key residues at the constriction site in a prokaryotic Nav channel (NavRh) to its mammalian counterpart. By simulating the mutant structure, we found that the Na⁺ preference in mammalian Nav channels is collaboratively achieved by the deselection from Lys and the selection from Asp/Glu within the constriction site.

FocA belongs to the formate-nitrate transporter family and plays an essential role in the export and uptake of formate in organisms. According to the available crystal structures, the N-terminal residues of FocA are structurally featureless at physiological conditions but at reduced pH form helices to harbor the cytoplasmic entrance of the substrate permeation pathway, which apparently explains the cessation of electrical signal observed in electrophysiological experiments. In this work, we found by structural analysis and molecular dynamics simulations that those N-terminal helices cannot effectively preclude the substrate permeation. Equilibrium simulations and thermodynamic calculations suggest that FocA is permeable to both formate and formic acid, the latter of which is transparent to electrophysiological studies as an electrically neutral species. Hence, the cease of electrical current at acidic pH may be caused by the change of the transported substrate from formate to formic acid. In addition, the mechanism of formate export at physiological pH is discussed.

In this study, the reversibility of π−π stacking interactions at graphite electrodes (GE) of pyrene, 1aminopyrene, 1-pyrenecarboxylic acid, and doxorubicin hydrochloride (DOX) have been studied. The adsorption and desorption of these π-orbital-rich molecules was characterized using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and cyclic voltammetry (CV). The experimental investigations were complemented with a density functional theory study of the interaction between these π-orbital-rich molecules and graphite. It was demonstrated that the charged pyrene derivatives could be electrochemically desorbed from the graphitic surfaces, when a sufficiently high potential of the same charge as the pyrene derivative, was applied to the electrode. The duration of the applied potential, the pH and the magnitude of the applied potential during potential pulsing were found to be important with regards to the desorption efficiency. Up to 90% of charged pyrene derivatives could be removed from the electrode surface within 60 s via potential pulsing. However, these parameters produced insignificant effects on neutral pyrene bound to the graphite. A potential application of this electrochemically induced desorption of π-rich species in drug delivery was demonstrated via the release of adsorbed doxorubicin (DOX).

A coarse-grained (CG) model for peptides and proteins was developed as an extension of the Surface Property fItting Coarse grAined (SPICA) force field (FF). The model was designed to examine membrane proteins that are fully compatible with the lipid membranes of the SPICA FF. A preliminary version of this protein model was created using thermodynamic properties, including the surface tension and density in the SPICA (formerly called SDK) FF. In this study, we improved the CG protein model to facilitate molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with a reproduction of multiple properties from both experiments and all-atom (AA) simulations. An elastic network model was adopted to maintain the secondary structure within a single chain. The side-chain analogues reproduced the transfer free energy profiles across the lipid membrane and demonstrated reasonable association free energy (potential of mean force) in water compared to those from AA MD. A series of peptides/proteins adsorbed onto or penetrated into the membrane simulated by the CG MD correctly predicted the penetration depths and tilt angles of peripheral and transmembrane peptides/proteins as comparable to those in the orientations of proteins in membranes (OPM) database. In addition, the dimerization free energies of several transmembrane helices within a lipid bilayer were comparable to those from experimental estimation. Application studies on a series of membrane protein assemblies, scramblases, and poliovirus capsids demonstrated the good performance of the SPICA FF.

NaChBac is a bacterial voltage-gated sodium (Na v ) channel that shows sequence similarity to voltage-gated calcium channels. To understand the ion-permeation mechanism of Na v channels, we combined molecular dynamics simulation, structural biology and electrophysiological approaches to investigate the recently determined structure of Na v Rh, a marine bacterial NaChBac ortholog. Two Na + binding sites are identified in the selectivity filter (SF) in our simulations: The extracellular Na + ion first approaches site 1 constituted by the side groups of Ser181 and Glu183, and then spontaneously arrives at the energetically more favorable site 2 formed by the carbonyl oxygens of Leu179 and Thr178. In contrast, Ca 2+ ions are prone to being trapped by Glu183 at site 1, which then blocks the entrance of both Na + and Ca 2+ to the vestibule of the SF. In addition, Na + permeates through the selective filter in an asymmetrical manner, a feature that resembles that of the mammalian Na v orthologs. The study reported here provides insights into the mechanism of ion selectivity on Na + over Ca 2+ in mammalian Na v channels.