Stochastic Gating as a Novel Mechanism for Channel Selectivity (Biophysical Journal)

An ideal channel, responsible for metabolite fluxes in and out of the cells and cellular compartments, is supposed to be selective for a particular set of molecules only. However, such a channel has to be wide enough to accommodate relatively large metabolites, and, therefore, it allows passage of smaller solutes, for example, sodium, potassium, and chloride ions, thus compromising membrane`s barrier function. Here we show that stochastic gating is able to provide a mechanism for the selectivity of wide channels in favor of large metabolites.