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MINIREVIEW
Allostery and Cooperativity
in the Interaction of Drugs
with Ionic Channel Receptors
J. KRÙŠEK
Institute of Physiology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech
Republic, Prague, Czech Republic
Received December 19, 2003
Accepted February 26, 2004
Summary
Allostery is an essential property of many physiological
mechanisms. Cooperativity together with allostery is observed in
the behavior of multisubunit receptors. Here we summarize and
compare several approaches to the description and analysis of
allosteric phenomena with emphasis on the receptors connected to
ionic channels as a model. Several simplified methods are
discussed in comparison with the microscopic kinetic scheme,
affinity-efficacy separation and a thermodynamic approach.
Key words
Allostery • Cooperativity • Hill coefficient • Affinity •
Efficacy • Nicotinic acetylcholine receptor
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