The conductivity of potassium ion channels in lymphocytes T of patients with pollinosis

Ion channels, as integral membrane protein structures controlling a passive ion transport across cell membranes, contribute importantly to cellular signaling processes. The voltage gated potassium channels Kv1.3 within the membranes of lymphocyte T take part of physiological reactions in these cells. The measure of their activity is potassium conductance /gK/ that can be modified by various factors , including disease states. In our previous studies we showed that T lymphocytes (TL) from patients with pollinosis exhibited higher value of the whole-cell potassium conductance (gK) than in control group. In the present study we decided to find the conductance difference between pollinotics during pollen season and in remission. We applied the whole-cell patch-clamp technique to evaluate gK in human T-lymphocytes from: /A/ 14 pollinotics during pollen season, /B/ 24 patients with pollinosis remission, /C/ 42 healthy volunteers formed a control group. The gK did not differ significantly between pollinotics during and out of season [3.94+/-3.45 nS (n=123): 3.38+/-2.01 nS (n=112), respectively, p>0.05]. This values were higher than those in controls (C) [1.87+/-1.17 nS (n=222), p<0.0001--A vs C, p<0.0001--B vs C, respectively]. We confirmed that patients with pollinosis have higher conductance value, surprisingly we did not find any differences between symptomatic and asymptomatic pollinotics.