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In this computer simulation the oxygen (red) atom of each water molecule points down as it moves through the channel toward the 2 asparagine. To pass through the narrow opening each water molecule binds first to one asparagine and then to the second. In this process each water molecule rolls over so that the oxygen points up toward the asparagine — now from the opposite side of the passageway — and passes through the remaining portion of the channel. The animation and explanation were produced by the National Institutes of Health Center for Macromolecular Modeling & Bioinformatics and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/aquaporins/).