Figure 1. Mechanisms of membrane ion channel gating.
(a) Voltage-gated ion channel changes its conformation in response to an increase of the transmembrane bias. (b) Ligand-gated channel opens or closes its transmembrane pore in response to ligand binding. (c) Mechanosensitive channel opens when the membrane tension exceeds a threshold value. (d) The electromechanical gating by an insertable peptide gate investigated in this work.