Electron current recordings in living cells

Abstract

Living cells exploit the electrical properties of matter for a multitude of fundamental physiological processes, such as accumulation of nutrients, cellular homeostasis, signal transmission. While ion channels and transporters (able to couple ions to various substrates) have been extensively studied, direct measurements of electron currents mediated by specific proteins are just at the beginning. Here, we present the various electrophysiological approaches that have allowed recordings of electron currents and highlight the future potential of such experiments.

Tonoplast cytochrome b561 is a transmembrane ascorbate‐dependent monodehydroascorbate reductase: functional characterization of electron currents in plant vacuoles

“…The maximal rates of electron transport ( I max ) that CYB561A can catalyze in the two directions are similar, suggesting that the energy barriers the electrons have to overcome to travel from the cytosol to the vacuole and vice versa are symmetric. Double reciprocal plots of the primary kinetic data show parallel patterns consistent with a ping‐pong reaction mechanism and a simple equation to model the activity of CYB561A at any given concentration of electron donor and acceptor could be derived (see the Materials and Methods section; Picco et al ., 2014; Trost et al ., 2017).…”