BSCI 426 /BIOL 622                        Fall '14                           Problem Set 9

assigned:     11/13/14
due:           11/20/14

Channel Voltage-Gating

This assignment will be the reverse of what one would normally do in real life. Typically one measures the current through a membrane containing channels as a function of voltage and then one determines the conductance as a function of voltage. Finally one fits to a Boltzmann distribution to determine the voltage-dependence parameters "n" and psi₀. I will give you the parameters and ask you to generate plots of conductance vs voltage (GV) and current vs voltage (IV).

The membrane contains 10 channels whose single-channel conductance is 20 pS. The steepness of the voltage dependence, n, is 4 and the voltage at which half the channels are open is 40 mV. Generate the IV and GV plots.