X-raying ion channels

The Nobel Prize winner Roderick MacKinnon suggested that ion channels were like rigid tubes through which molecules of varying size move. Now it seems that he was wrong: a team of scientists from SISSA Trieste and the Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste at AREA Science Park used the most robust technique in this field, X-ray crystallography, to watch ionic channels to change their diameter as they adjust to the size of the ions crossing them.

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