Mercury 502/Getting down to business

Our team has decided it would be more efficient to focus on a specific aspect of the regulation of the membrane potential. One way to do this is with the K-ATP channel.

The K-ATP channel is responsible for the cell membrane potential in pancreatic-beta cells. The K-ATP channel is a special kind of K+ channel that is gated on and off depending on the cell's intracellular concentrations of ATP. Often, when there is a problem with the cell's membrane potential, it is almost always caused by a faulty potassium pump. We may define this as our problem, and then use an electron accelerator to transport Potassium.

The electron accelerator could be a combination of an electric field between two parallel plates, as well as a perpendicular magnetic field to accelerate the ions in and out of the cell. This device would be gated so it is only being used when sensors in the cell determine the potential difference needs to increase or decrease. The device would have terminals on both sides to attract the ions into the device to be accelerated. This way the device cannot only send +/- ions in the cell, but also out of the cell. Perhaps the cell could be encapsulated in a micelle with hydrophilic ends and hydrophobic middle so it would orient itself properly in the membrane.

This brings up the issue of what to make this out of. Plastic is a possibility, but we obviously need something metallic that conducts electricity. This means we need try and find a metal that is not harmful in the body. Also, this device needs some sort of battery to create this electric current, and if so, how do we make that?

The electron accelerator will need to discriminate between species of ions. We can’t have it attract all + or - ions in the local vicinity and move them around. Otherwise, the device might fill the cell interior with Ca2+. High intracellular levels of Ca2+ are often very harmful to cell biochemistry and physiology. However, if we can keep the total flux of ions down to some reasonable level, then the effect of altering the intracellular concentrations might not be so bad.