The story of the sodium-potassium pump has strong ties to Denmark. In 1997, the Danish scientist Jens Chr. Skou received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery, and over the years ...

The structure of the sodium-potassium pump is presented in a schematic cell membrane. The extracellular space is situated above and the intracellular space below the figure. The left-hand side of ...

The three small sodium ions are bound inside the pump (violet spheres to the left), whereas there is not sufficient room for the larger potassium ions (green spheres to the right).