Correlation character of ionic current fluctuations: Analysis of ion current through a voltage-dependent potassium single channel Original Research Article

The gating of ion channels has widely been modeled by assuming the transition between open and closed states is a memoryless process. Nevertheless, the statistical analysis of an ionic current signal recorded from voltage dependence K+ single channel is presented. Calculating the sample auto-correlation function of the ionic current based on the digitized signals, rather than the sequence of open and closed states duration time. The results provide evidence for the existence of memory. For different voltages, the ion channel current fluctuation has different correlation attributions. The correlations in data generated by simulation of two Markov models, on one hand, auto-correlation function of the ionic current shows a weaker memory, after a delayed period of time, the attribute of memory does not exist; on the other hand, the correlation depends on the number of states in the Markov model. For Vp = − 60 mV pipette potential, spectral analysis of ion channel current was conducted, the result indicates that the spectrum is not a flat spectrum, the data set from ionic current fluctuations shows considerable variability with a broad 1/f -like spectrum, α = 1.261 ± 0.24. Thus the ion current fluctuations give information about the kinetics of the channel protein, the results suggest the correlation character of ion channel protein nonlinear kinetics regardless of whether the channel is in open or closed state.