Search for Intracellular Sensors Involved in the Functioning of Monovalent Cations as Secondary Messengers.

Maintenance of non-equilibrium Na+ and K+ distribution between cytoplasm and extracellular medium suggests existence of sensors responding with conformational transitions to the changes of these monovalent cations' intracellular concentration. Molecular nature of monovalent cation sensors has been established in Na,K-ATPase, G-protein-coupled receptors, and heat shock proteins structural studies. Recently, it was found that changes in Na+ and K+ intracellular concentration are the key factors in the transcription and translation control, respectively. In this review, we summarize results of these studies and discuss physiological and pathophysiological significance of Na+i,K+i-dependent gene expression regulation mechanism.