Dan Minor

'Frog 🐸 protein saves mice 🐭 from deadly toxin ☠️ '
STX is one of the most lethal toxins known. Our new work shows that a single dose of frog saxiphilin neutralizes STX poisoning in mice.
Behold the awesome power of frogs 🐸!
🙏🎉 to my fantastic team and collaborators.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

New work from our lab. Structures of K2P6.1 (TWIK2) that yield a new and suprising perspective on how lipids affect K2P channels. Great work from Abishek Mondal and Sangeeta Niranjan in my lab.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Structural basis for saxitoxin congener binding and neutralization by anuran saxiphilins Nature Communications - Dinoflagellates and cyanobacteria produce saxitoxin (STX) congeners that block voltage-gated sodium channels. Here authors show how amphibians may sequester STX congeners...

New insights from our group into how frogs resist toxic environments published today! 🎉🐸
Congratulations to Sandra, Samantha @samnscience.bsky.social, Zhou, and our collaborators Tod Leighfield, Filizola lab @martafilizola.bsky.social, and Du Bois lab at Stanford.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Structure of the human K2P13.1 channel reveals a hydrophilic pore restriction and lipid cofactor site - Nature Structural & Molecular Biology Roy-Chowdhury et al. report structures of the human leak channel K2P13.1 that identify a hydrophilic pore restriction and a polyunsaturated-fatty-acid-binding site corresponding to a small-molecule ag...

Our THIK study of the THIK K2P is out showing a novel feature that affects function (flow restrictor) and a PUFA modulation site. Congratulations to my team. 🥳 See also work by @profkalium.bsky.social in the same issue of NSMB. A growing thicket of THIK structures 😃

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Minor lab reunion. A BPS highlight every year 😄🙏

Great talk by Dr Sandra
Zakrzewska
From our lab about her work on toxin binding proteins from frogs 🐸. Check out her poster tomorrow.
/ B409 - STRUCTURAL BASIS FOR SAXITOXIN CONGENER BINDING AND NEUTRALIZATION BY ANURAN SAXIPHILINS

Electrosome assembly: Structural insights from high voltage-activated calcium channel (CaV)–chaperone interactions Ion channels are multicomponent complexes (termed here as“electrosomes”) that conduct the bioelectrical signals required for life. It has been appreciated for decades that assembly is critical for pro...

Glad to share a new minireview with Zhou Chen summarizing our current thoughts on how cells make electrosomes (aka ion channels).

portlandpress.com/biochemsoctr...