BK Channel News : Full Coverage on the Calcium Bowl

The large conductance Ca²⁺-activated K⁺ channel (BK_Ca) is well positioned to assume diverse physiological functions because it is ubiquitously expressed in many cell types. Some of the functions recently proposed for this channel offer unexpected surprises, however, such as a role in innate immunity in neutrophil leukocytes (Ahluwalia et al., 2004), recognition as a heme-binding protein (Tang et al., 2003), behavioral responses to ethanol (Davies et al., 2003), and a protective mechanism against ischemic cell death in the inner mitochondrial membrane of cardiac myocytes (Xu et al., 2002). These novel occupations attributed to BK_Ca remain to be fully explored and validated before placing them along side the well-established physiological functions of this channel in the negative feedback regulation of voltage-gated Ca²⁺ entry into nerve terminals (Robitaille et al., 1993...