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Mitochondrial VDAC and Its Modulation
Xin-Hui Tang1,2, Jing Gao1*, Qiang Xu3
1Institute of Materia Medica, School of Medicine, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China; 2Department of Biology, Yancheng Teachers College, Yancheng 240002, China; 3State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology,
Abstract: Voltage-dependant anion channel (VDAC)， a 31 kDa membrane protein， forms an aqueous channel in the mitochondrial outer membrane. As a protein providing the pathway for transporting anions， cations， ATP and other metabolites into and out of the mitochondria， VDAC plays very important roles in not only the regulation of mitochondrial basic physiological function such as energy transduction， substance metabolism， intracellular calcium homeostasis but cell death. This paper summarizes the recent advances in the research on the structure， characterization， and the regulation of VDAC channel and reviews the physiological relevance of VDAC to calcium homeostasis and mitochondria-mediated necrosis and apoptosis.
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