Enzymatic activation of voltage-gated potassium channels

Voltage-gated ion channels in excitable nerve, muscle, and endocrine cells generate electric signals in the form of action potentials1. However, they are also present in non-excitable eukaryotic cells and prokaryotes, which raises the question of whether voltage-gated channels might be activated by means other than changing the voltage difference between the solutions separated by the plasma membrane. The search for so-called voltage-gated channel activators is motivated in part by the growing importance of such agents in clinical pharmacology. Here we report the apparent activation of voltage-gated K+ (Kv) channels by a sphingomyelinase.