The Molecular Mechanism of Ginsenoside Analogs Activating TMEM16A (Biophysical Journal)

The calcium-activated chloride channel TMEM16A is involved in many physiological processes, and insufficient function of TMEM16A may lead to the occurrence of various diseases. Therefore, TMEM16A activators are supposed to be potentially useful for treatment of TMEM16A downregulation-inducing diseases. However, the TMEM16A activators are relatively rare, and the underlying activation mechanism of them is unclear. In the previous work, we have proved that ginsenoside Rb1 is a TMEM16A activator. In this work, we explored the activation mechanism of ginsenoside analogs on TMEM16A through analyzing the interactions between six ginsenoside analogs and TMEM16A.