Allostery and cooperativity in the interaction of drugs with ionic channel receptors.

Allostery is an essential property of many physiological mechanisms. Cooperativity together with allostery is observed in the behavior of multisubunit receptors. Here we summarize and compare several approaches to the description and analysis of allosteric phenomena with emphasis on the receptors connected to ionic channels as a model. Several simplified methods are discussed in comparison with the microscopic kinetic scheme, affinity-efficacy separation and a thermodynamic approach.