FIGURE 1.

Ion channel proteins translocate to the membrane of the rough endoplasmic reticulum (ER), traffic to the Golgi, and are transported to the surface membrane on microtubules, where they form clusters. Left: cartoon depicting the synthesis, membrane translocation, processing, and trafficking of ion channels to the surface membrane. Top right: superresolution image of ion channel clusters in the surface membrane. Bottom right: histogram of ion channel cluster areas from images like that above. The purple, green, and gray ovals at the tip of the microtubules cartoon represent microtubule-anchoring/binding proteins such as BIN1. Histogram was modified from Sato et al. (5) with permission. Cartoon created with Biorender.com.