The Anocamines constitute a large family of calcium-activated chloride channels that are involved in different physiological processes such as epithelial transport, olfactory signal transduction and the regulation of electrical excitability. Their up-regulation in cancers makes them potential drug targets. While their functional phenotype was known for decades,their genes have only been identified recently.

The proteins are broadly expressed in eukaryotic organisms and share a conserved structural architecture that is not related to any other class of membrane proteins that consists of 8 putative transmembrane segments and a cytosolic N- terminal domain, which is variable in length. To understand the mechanism of ion transport and calcium mediated activation of these channels we are aiming for the structure determination by X-ray crystallography followed by a functional characterization of ion conduction and gating.

Dutzler Website