S. Kuyucak et Sh. Chung, TEMPERATURE-DEPENDENCE OF CONDUCTIVITY IN ELECTROLYTE-SOLUTIONS AND IONIC CHANNELS OF BIOLOGICAL-MEMBRANES, Biophysical chemistry, 52(1), 1994, pp. 15-24
Temperature is a key parameter in the description of any physical syst
em. Experimental study of the temperature dependence of conductivity i
s very valuable in building and testing theoretical models. This fact
does not appear to be fully appreciated and exploited in the study of
ionic channels of biological membranes owing in part to the lack of an
adequate theory for the temperature dependence of conductivity in ele
ctrolyte solutions. To redress this imbalance, and to encourage furthe
r temperature-dependence studies in ionic channels, we first give expl
icit expressions for the conductivity of ions in electrolyte solutions
in terms of the microscopic parameters of the liquid. We then propose
that the dynamics of ion transport in membrane channels are similar t
o that in bulk electrolyte solutions, except that ions permeating the
pore need to surmount a potential barrier, the height of which can be
deduced experimentally. Finally, we use our model to analyze the condu
ctance-temperature relationships obtained in two types of single ionic
channels.