I stumbled upon this piece as I was searching the web for some references for one of the homework questions.
KvLQT1 is a protein that controls the delayed rectifier for potassium ions, which controls repolarization of the cell. If a mutation causes this protein to be defective, repolarization of the cardiac cells may occur or too late, which can essentially make the heart irritable and cause it to function in arrhythmia. (repolarization happens to be the most vulnerable stage for the heart, so based on that knowledge alone, this seems like it has the potential to do some serious damage!)
No comments:
Post a Comment