The ligand gated ion channel database

The ligand gated ion channels (LGICs) are ionotropic receptors to neurotran smitters. Their physiological effect is carried out by the opening of an io nic channel upon binding of a particular neurotransmitter. These LGICs cons titute superfamilies of receptors formed by homologous subunits. A database has been developed to handle the growing wealth of cloned subunits, This d atabase contains nucleic acid sequences, protein sequences, as well as mult iple sequence alignments and phylogenetic studies. This database is accessi ble via the worldwide web (http://www. pasteur.fr/units/neubiomol/LGIC.html ), where it is continuously updated. A downloadable version is also availab le [currently v0.1 (98.06)].