This paper is the third in a series of reviews published in this issue resulting from the
University of California Davis Cardiovascular Symposium 2014: Systems approach to …

Unique to striated muscle cells, transverse tubules (t-tubules) are membrane organelles that
consist of sarcolemma penetrating into the myocyte interior, forming a highly branched and …

The stability and shape of the erythrocyte membrane is provided by the ankyrin-1 complex,
but how it tethers the spectrin–actin cytoskeleton to the lipid bilayer and the nature of its …

Ion channels represent the molecular entities that give rise to the cardiac action potential,
the fundamental cellular electrical event in the heart. The concerted function of these …

In cardiomyocytes, invaginations of the sarcolemmal membrane called t-tubules are critically
important for triggering contraction by excitation-contraction (EC) coupling. These structures …

Mammalian Na+/Ca2+ exchangers are members of three branches of a much larger family
of transport proteins [the CaCA (Ca2+/cation antiporter) superfamily] whose main role is to …

Routine use of diuretics and neurohumoral activation make hypokalemia (serum K+< 3. 5
mM) a prevalent electrolyte disorder among heart failure patients, contributing to the …

Triggered activity in cardiac muscle and intracellular Ca2+ have been linked in the past.
However, today not only are there a number of cellular proteins that show clear Ca2+ …

Ion channel function is fundamental to the existence of life. In metazoans, the coordinate
activities of voltage-gated Na+ channels underlie cellular excitability and control neuronal …

Abstract IP 3 receptor (IP 3 R) was found to release Ca 2+ from non-mitochondrial store but
the exact localization and the mode of action of IP 3 remained a mystery. IP 3 R was …