The three books that make up The Textbook of Ion Channels offer students, teachers, and researchers a comprehensive reference source on ion channels. Membrane proteins called ion channels mediate the detection and response to sensory stimuli like light, sound, odor, and taste. They also control the reaction to physical stimuli like temperature and pressure. Ion channels also control the electrical characteristics of neurons and cardiac cells. Ion channels play a key role in the control of the fundamental salt balance in non-excitable tissues, which is essential for homeostasis. Ion channels are found in the membranes of intracellular organelles as well as the surface membrane of cells, providing them the special ability to connect with the environment and control internal homeostasis.
Ion channels play a crucial role in human health and disease, and they serve as essential pharmaceutical targets in the treatment of mental illness, cardiac disease, anesthesia, pain, and other clinical conditions. Modern research methodologies, including single ion-channel measuring techniques, animal models of ion channel illnesses, and human clinical trials for ion channel medications, are strong and diversified.
The fundamental concepts of ion permeation and selectivity, voltage-dependent, ligand-dependent, and mechano-dependent ion channel activation mechanisms, mechanisms for ion channel desensitization and inactivation, and fundamental pharmacology and inhibition of ion channels are all covered in Volume I, Part 1. A practical overview of the fundamental techniques for studying ion channels is provided in Volume I, Part 2. These techniques include heterologous expression, voltage-clamp and patch-clamp electrophysiology, isolation of native currents using patch clamping, modeling of ion channel gating, structures, and dynamics, crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy, fluorescence and paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy techniques, and genetic approaches in model organisms.
In addition to covering important examples of ion channel functions in regulation, physiology, and disease, all three volumes provide the reader with an introduction to the fundamental concepts needed to comprehend the mechanism of ion channels, a guide to the technical aspects of ion channel research, a contemporary guide to the properties of major ion channel families, and more.
