Figure 1

Regulation of Cx46 hemichannels by voltage and calcium. (A) Oocytes expressing Cx46 maintained at a holding potential of +20 mV were subjected to 8 hyperpolarizing pulses from 20 mV to −60 mV in 10 mV steps. Current traces that correspond to voltage traces have the same color. (B) Graph depicting the voltage activation curve of Cx46 obtained from tail currents. The solid line represents the fitting of the data to equation (1) and using the parameters given in the inset table. (C) Oocytes at a holding potential of −70 mV were subjected to depolarizing pulses to 0 mV at different Ca²⁺ concentrations (from 0 to 1.1 mM). The colored line indicates the concentration of Ca²⁺ present in the bath. (D) Graph depicting the normalized tail currents at the different Ca²⁺ concentration. The solid line represents the fitting of the data using equation (2) and the parameters given in the inset table.