Potassium Channel KcsA

Ion channels, such as potassium channels, are essential to the way our nerves work. This is a model of the potassium channel KcsA, from Streptomyces lividans. KcsA is a tetrameric protein composed of four identical subunits.

"Potassium channels are designed to allow the flow of potassium ions across the membrane, but to block the flow of other ions--in particular, sodium ions."
--http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/101/motm.do?momID=38

Four copies of 1K4C-surf_fixed.stl must be printed to make the tetrameric channel. Four copies of 1K4C-K.stl must be printed to give the four ions shown in the figures. The stl files presented here are to the same scale, so the same scaling must be applied if they are rescaled.

Model based on the Protein Data Bank entry 1K4C:
--http://www.pdb.org/pdb/explore/explore.do?pdbId=1k4c

Model created using VMD:
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/