KCNJ11 and diabetes mellitus: In this study, we surmounted the technical difficulties in capturing PIP2-bound to KATP channel, firstly by using a neonatal-diabetes Kir6.2 variant known to enhance channel activity, and secondly by using naturally occurring long-chain PIP2 before membrane solubilization, rather than the previously used approach of adding short-chain synthetic diC8-PIP2 after channel purification24,30,47.