Regulation of the Na/K pump is essential to maintain cells’ electrochemical gradients. Meyer et al. coexpressed the human α1β1 pump with five different FXYD proteins in Xenopus oocytes and show that FXYD isoforms have distinct effects on the pump’s ion affinity and membrane abundance.

Cone photoreceptors mediate daytime vision in vertebrates. The rapid and efficient regeneration of their visual pigments following photoactivation is critical for the cones to remain photoresponsive in bright and rapidly changing light conditions. Cone pigment regeneration depends on the recycling of visual chromophore, ...

Pusch and Zifarelli show that the lysosomal 2 Cl−/1 H+ antiporter ClC-7 mediates large, transient capacitive currents, which depend on external pH and internal Cl−. Unlike in other mammalian CLC antiporters, mutation of a conserved proton glutamate residue in ClC-7 does not abolish transport currents.

Cardiac small-conductance Ca2+-activated K+ (SK) channels are gated solely by beat-to-beat changes in intracellular Ca2+. Ledford et al. show distinct mechanisms by which human calmodulin mutants linked to sudden cardiac death regulate SK channels.

Stimulation of muscarinic Gq-coupled receptors initially depletes phosphoinositide phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate from the plasma membrane. Myeong et al. show that phosphoinositides subsequently regenerate during sustained receptor stimulation as a consequence of profound PI 4-kinase pathway acceleration and not desensitization of receptors.

Hays et al. studied glutamate release to understand how light-evoked responses are encoded at rod ribbon synapses. Individual vesicles fused stochastically in hyperpolarized rods, whereas release at depolarized potentials attained in darkness occurred in semiregular bursts of 10–20 vesicles.

Gaete et al. have designed a methodology that allows quantitative analysis of the permeation of ions and molecules through connexin and CALHM1 large-pore channels. Both channels display saturable transport of molecules that could be described by Michaelis-Menten kinetics with apparent Km and Vmax.