“…These limitations have been overcome by the purification of the SR Ca 2+ release channel protein and its consequent separation from other SR channel species. Purification has been aided by the specific, high affinity interaction of ryanodine with the SR Ca 2+ release channel (Inui, Saito, and Fleischer, 1987a, b;Lai, Erickson, Rousseau, Liu, and Meissner, 1988a, b;Smith, Imagawa, Ma, Fill, Campbell, and Coronado, 1988;Anderson, Lai, Liu, Rousseau, Erickson, and Meissner, 1989). The purified ryanodine receptors of skeletal (Smith et al, 1988;Lai et al, 1988b) and cardiac (Lai et al, 1988a;Anderson et al, 1989) muscle function as ligand-regulated, cation-selective channels displaying a range of gating and conduction properties characteristic of the native SR Ca z+ release channel.…”