Contact Admin. Our cells are capable of moving energy and material around to the places where they are required, and ensuring that the body works properly. But how do the cells do this in real time from the perspective of the individual molecule? The discovery has just been published in the leading journal Nature. This signal spreads to the other colour molecule on the pump, which begins to transmit light of another colour.
The group focuses on the relationship between the different colours, which is registered in a specially built light microscope. Illustrated here is the timeline for the pump function, which is now revealed in high time resolution. The curve shows the relationship between the measured fluorescent colours emitted from dyes bound to the pump.
The next step is the new, key result: The final stage illustrated shows that the pump has opened and released calcium ions into the surroundings. From here, it cannot return to the highlighted state. This function ensures that you and me, and all other biological creatures on Earth, work the way they should with the right biomolecular mechanisms. The calcium pump may not look like a lot. Each pump only measures a few nanometres, millionths of millimetres, in each direction, and sits in the cell membranes of our bodies.
But despite its diminutive size, it is crucial to life. This pump is the reason that our muscles can contract, and that neurons can send signals. If the tiny pump stopped working, cells would stop communicating.
Without it, we could neither move nor think. There are many things that we still do not know about the structure and function of this vital pump. Knowledge about the pump is essential to understand the energy balance and other important functions in the body. A Danish research group has just published a new study that for the first time shows how the pump functions at the level of a single molecule, and how it ensures that ions are pumped in the right direction.
