Dr. Fransisco (Pancho) Bezanilla
Hagiwara Professor of Neuroscience
fbezanil@ucla.edu

Visit my Lab

Research Interests:

Biophysics of excitation: Structure-function in voltage-dependent ionic channels.

The interest in the lab is the search for the molecular basis of the voltage sensor operation in voltage dependent channels and the molecular basis of nervous system adaptation. The molecular basis of excitability is being approached with physical techniques such as temperature effects and complex capacitance measurements in the frequency domain in engineered channel molecules and assessed by gating currents, macroscopic currents and single channel recordings. The correlation with structural changes are being monitored with optical fluorescence techniques from probes attached to strategic sites in the channel molecule to determine light intensity changes and measuring intramolecular distances with fluorescence resonance energy transfer. The adaptation is studied as a correlation of RNA editing in membrane proteins and their physiological consequences in related species living in different environments.

Representative Publications:

Chanda, B., Asamoah, OK, Blunck, R., Roux. B., Bezanilla, F. (2005). Gating charge displacement in voltage-gated ion channels involves limited transmembrane movement. Nature. 436(7052):852-856.

Blunck, R., Starace, DM., Correa, AM., Bezanilla, F. (2004). Detecting rearrangements of shaker and NaChBac in real-time with flourescence spectroscopy in patch-clamped mammalian cells. Biophys J. 86(6):3966-3980.

Chanda, B., Asamoah, OK., Bezanilla, F. (2004). Coupling interactions between voltage sensors of the sodium channel as revealed by site-specific measurements. J Gen Physiol. 123(3):217-230.