A Solution to the Gating Paradox

Abstract

We introduce a Markov model for the gating of membrane channels. The model features a possible solution to the so-called gating current paradox, namely that the bell-shaped curve that describes the voltage dependence of the kinetics is broader than expected from, and shifted relative to, the sigmoidal curve that describes the voltage dependence of the activation. The model also predicts some temperature dependence of this shift, but presence of the latter has not been tested experimentally so far.