A NEW APPROACH TO THE ELECTROSTATIC STABILIZATION OF CATIONS IN THE AQUEOUS CAVITY OF K+ CHANNEL:
THE ROLE OF NONLOCAL-ELECTROSTATIC EFFECTS
A. A. Rubashkin,1,* P. Iserovich 2
1Institute of Cytology RAS, S. Petersburg, and 2 Department of Ophthalmology, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, New York, USA;
*e-mail: andrey.rubashkin@gmail.com
Methods of nonlocal electrostatics, applied to ion channels in our previous papers, are used to analyze the stability of K+ in the aqueous cavity of
K+ channel. Other authors used formulas of classical electrostatics to calculate the energy of K+ in the aqueous cavity of KcsA. Using a new formulation
of nonlocal-electrostatic theory, we obtained a formula for the image force energy acting on K+, which is in the center of a spherical cavity of K+ channel.
It is shown that nonlocal-electrostatic effects in the aqueous cavity of K+ channel leads to a decrease in the energy K+ on 4kT compared with the
calculation by the formulas of classical electrostatics.
Key words: K+ channel, aqueous cavity, electrostatic stabilization, nonlocal electrostatics
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