( move through a channel. The growing ...)Membrane research opens window to benefits for plants, humans

The growing knowledge of how aquaporins regulate water passage eventually could help agricultural producers boost survivability of drought-stricken and flood-ridden crops. It also could lead to new pharmaceuticals that specifically target these proteins.

"The kidneys are responsible for maintaining a water balance in the body," said Swedish co-author Per Kjellbom in a Lund University news release. "If we can identify a chemical compound that can close the aquaporins in the kidneys, this can be developed into a diuretic drug. By the same token, compounds that stabilize the closed structure could be used in cancer treatment."

Tajkhorshid and Yi Wang, a biophysics graduate student at Illinois, conducted the molecular simulations using VMD and NAMD software developed in their Beckman lab, which is an NIH (National Institutes of Health) Resource for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics. The simulations were performed at both the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at Illinois and the Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center. Swedish co-authors were Kristina Hedfalk, Urban Johanson, Maria Karlsson, Kjellbom, Neutze and Susanna Tornroth-Horsefield.