Marine Toxins Targeting Ion Channels

Dear Colleagues,

Marine toxins are found in an evolutionarily diverse group of organisms such as cyanobacteria, dinoflagellates, algae, cnidarians, gastropods and vertebrates. Many of these toxins target voltage-gated ion channels (VGICs) or ligand-gated ion channels (ionotropic receptors) to produce their effect. Peptide and alkaloid marine toxins, including conotoxins, tetrodotoxin and saxitoxins, and sea anemone toxins have been of significant interest to the research community for several reasons. Investigation of their action on voltage-gated or ligand-gated ion channels has provided a wealth of information regarding the structure–function relations of channels, as their diversity of effect can be correlated to specific binding sites, allowing biophysical characterization of channel regions. Further, the potency of some marine toxins and their specificity suggest their possible use in therapeutic alleviation of channelopathy symptoms. Study of the action of these toxins in detail also provides a health-related benefit with a molecular understanding of the channels in the development of pharmacological agents in a diversity of neurological diseases. These advantageous characteristics of marine toxins have been even more evident as studies taking advantage of advanced techniques for high-resolution determination of protein structure and computation employ toxins as an additional approach.

In this Special Issue “Marine Toxins Targeting Ion Channels”, we invite submissions of original and review manuscripts focused on one or more areas of research involving marine toxins. These include the following:

• Biophysical characterization of the effects of marine toxins to study VGIC function;
• Biophysical characterization of the effects of marine toxins to study receptor channel function;
• Structural determination of marine toxin–channel interaction (VGIC or receptor channel) including X-ray crystallographic, cryo-EM and NMR approaches;
• Computational approaches (homology modeling, molecular dynamics, docking simulations) that investigate toxin–channel interactions;
• Characterization of novel marine toxins (purification and physiological effect).

Dr. James R. Groome
Prof. Dr. Owen M. McDougal
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Marine Drugs is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• marine toxin
• voltage-gated ion channels
• ligand-gated ion channels
• electrophysiology
• structure
• peptide
• alkaloid

• Ion Channels as Marine Drug Targets in Marine Drugs (7 articles)
• Toxins as Marine-Based Drug Discovery in Marine Drugs (7 articles)