Bacterial Na Channels: Progenitors, Progeny, or Parallel Evolution?

Eukaryotic voltage-sensitive sodium and calcium channels have a major structural subunit that consists of four linked, homologous domains, which contain six putative transmembrane (TM) segments for an overall total of 24. In the putative pore-lining S5-S6 linker, a glutamate residue appears in the position homologous to that acknowledged as the selectivity filter in eukaryotic sodium and calcium channels. Members of the sodium channel family typically have a selectivity ring consisting of the aspartate, glutamate, lysine, and alanine residues contributed from domains I through IV, respectively. The possibility of bacterial sodium channels being involved in rapid flagellar movement has been raised by Clapham and collaborators. Voltage-gated ion channels (VICs) are a subset of the larger P-loop ion channel family. Most voltage-activated channels exhibit two competing responses to membrane depolarization, which initiates both an activation process that results in channel opening and an inactivation process that ultimately results in channel closing. Analyses of the crystal structures of two 2-TM bacterial potassium channels led to the conclusion that the structure of KcsA represented a closed state and that of the related calcium-gated channel, MthK, crystallized in the presence of bound calcium, represented an open state. The 6-TM channels such as Shaker offer easier genetic manipulation, including the possibility of changing four residues in a functional channel for the price of a single mutation. A strong argument has been made that the bacterial sodium channels represent, or at least are closely related to, progenitors of eukaryotic channels.