Synthetic Purpose
Other types of gated ion channels, ligand-gated and voltage-gated, have been synthesized with a light-gated component in an attempt to better understand their nature and properties. By the addition of a light-gated section, the kinetics and mechanisms of operation can be studied in depth. For example, the addition of a light-gated component allows for the introduction of many highly similar ligands to be introduced to the binding site of a ligand-gated ion channel to assist in the determination of the mechanism.
In 1980, the first ion channel to be adapted for study with a light-gated mechanism was the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor. This receptor was well-known at the time, and so was aptly suited to adaptation, and allowed for a study of the kinetics as not allowed before.
Read more about this topic: Light-gated Ion Channel
Famous quotes containing the words synthetic and/or purpose:
“In every philosophical school, three thinkers succeed one another in the following way: the first produces out of himself the sap and seed, the second draws it out into threads and spins a synthetic web, and the third waits in this web for the sacrificial victims that are caught in it—and tries to live off philosophy.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“If God bestowed immortality on every man then when he made him, and he made many to whom he never purposed to give his saving grace, what did his Lordship think that God gave any man immortality with purpose only to make him capable of immortal torments? It is a hard saying, and I think cannot piously be believed. I am sure it can never be proved by the canonical Scripture.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)