Dissection of the 3D structure of the first cyclic nucleotide-gated ion channel

On January 18th, 2017, Ion Channel Pharmaceutical Development Center of Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Columbia University cooperated with Tsinghua University and dissected the 3D structure of the first cyclic nucleotide-gated ion channel with high resolution. The research achivement was elaborated in a paper named Structure of a eukaryotic cyclic nucleotide-gated channel which was published in the journal Nature. The researchers first acquired the whole structure of a cyclic nucleotide-gated ion channel(CNG channel) in the open status with the high resolution of 3.5 Å by using the single particle cryo-electron microscopy(cryo-EM). The dissection of this structure provided a brand new key experimental evidence for kowning the cyclic nucleotide-gated mechanism of ion channels and the mechanism of ion permeation and pathogenesis.