The long-term goal of my laboratory is to elucidate the structural basis of the function of ion channels and other macromolecular complexes. We use in vitro and in vivo systems to study the physiological properties of these protein complexes, and employ electron cryo-microscopy (cryoEM) and crystallography to generate their 3D structures. Currently we are working on two types of ion channels, a voltage-gated potassium channel and a ligand-gated calcium release channel. The study of the voltage-gated channel is aimed to understanding the structural basis of voltage-dependent gating in a phospholipid membrane. Using single particle reconstruction and electron crystallography we are striving to obtain native structures of the channel under the conditions where the voltage sensing domains in the channel take different conformations and are tightly coupled to its ion conduction pore. These studies will elucidate the structural rearrangement of the voltage-sensing domains, and their control of the channel pore. For the ligand-gated channel we are focusing on understanding the structural rearrangement underlying the ligand gating, both the allosteric changes on the cytoplasmic side and the subsequent control of the ion channel pore. In addition we are interested in elucidating the structural basis for the involvement of this channel in different cellular activities by the combination of single particle reconstruction, electron tomography and functional analysis.
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
Daniel Schmidt*, Qiu-Xing Jiang*, and Roderick MacKinnon, "Phospholipids and the origin of cationic gating charges in voltage sensors" Nature, 444:775-779, December 2006
Qiu-Xing Jiang, Da-Neng Wang, and Roderick MacKinnon, "Electron microscopic analysis of KvAP voltage-dependent K+ channels in an open conformation." Nature, 430:806-810, August 2004
SIGNIFICANT PUBLICATIONS
Qiu-Xing Jiang, Edwin C. Thrower, David W. Chester, Barbara E. Ehrlich, and Fred J. Sigworth, "Three-dimensional structure of Type 1 inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor at 24 Å resolution." EMBO J., 21:3575-3581, 2002
Qiu-Xing Jiang, David W. Chester, and Fred J. Sigworth., "Spherical reconstruction: a method for structure determination of membrane proteins from cryo-EM images" J. Struct. Biol., 133:119-131, 2001
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