Epithelial Sodium Channel - Structure

Structure

ENaC consists of three different subunits: α, β, γ. All three subunits are essential for transport to the membrane assembly of functional channels on the membrane. The stoichiometry of these subunits is still to be verified, but ENaC is very likely to be a heterotrimeric protein like the recently analyzed acid-sensing ion channel 1 (ASIC1), which belongs to the same family. Each of the subunits consists of two transmembrane helices and an extracellular loop. The amino- and carboxy-termini of all polypeptides are located in the cytosol.

Structurally, the proteins that belong to this family consist of about 510 to 920 amino acid residues. They are made of an intracellular N-terminus region followed by a transmembrane domain, a large extracellular loop, a second transmembrane segment and a C-terminal intracellular tail.

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