In cardiac sarcolemmal vesicles, MgATP stimulates Na+/Ca2+exchange with the following characteristics: 1) increases 10-fold the apparent affinity for cytosolic Ca2+; 2) a Michaelis constant for ATP of ∼500 μM; 3) requires micromolar vanadate while millimolar concentrations are inhibitory; 4) not observed in the presence of 20 μM eosin alone but reinstated when vanadate is added; 5) mimicked by adenosine 5′- O-(3-thiotriphosphate), without the need for vanadate, but not by β,γ-methyleneadenosine 5′-triphosphate; and 6) not affected by unspecific protein alkaline phosphatase but abolished by a phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C (PI-PLC). The PI-PLC effect is counteracted by phosphatidylinositol. In addition, in the absence of ATP,l-α-phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP2) was able to stimulate the exchanger activity in vesicles pretreated with PI-PLC. This MgATP stimulation is not related to phosphorylation of the carrier, whereas phosphorylation appeared in the phosphoinositides, mainly PIP2, that coimmunoprecipitate with the exchanger. Vesicles incubated with MgATP and no Ca2+ show a marked synthesis ofl-α-phosphatidylinositol 4-monophosphate (PIP) with little production of PIP2; in the presence of 1 μM Ca2+, the net synthesis of PIP is smaller, whereas that of PIP2increases ninefold. These results indicate that PIP2 is involved in the MgATP stimulation of the cardiac Na+/Ca2+exchanger through a fast phosphorylation chain: a Ca2+-independent PIP formation followed by a Ca2+-dependent synthesis of PIP2.

The Na/Ca exchange is a highly regulated transport mechanism in which MgATP, a powerful modulatory intracellular substrate, has important implications for its function. As occurs with some preparations, in squid axons, nucleotide regulation is lost after membrane vesicle isolation. This has been a significant obstacle in the biochemical characterization of the MgATP effect. An important clue in solving this long-standing puzzle is presented in this work by showing that prolonged intracellular dialysis of squid axons produces a complete run down of the MgATP effect. Here we report that a soluble cytoplasmic factor isolated from fresh squid axoplasm and brain reconstitutes the MgATP stimulation of the Na-gradient-dependent 45Ca uptake in squid optic nerve membrane vesicles. Partial purification of this factor uncovers the presence of a novel 13 kDa soluble cytoplasmic protein (SCPr) which, when microinjected in ATP de-regulated dialyzed squid axons, completely restores the MgATP stimulation of Na(o)-dependent Ca efflux. We propose that in the squid preparation this SCPr constitutes the link between the nucleotide and target effector: the Na/Ca exchanger itself, or other plasma membrane structures which may secondarily interact with the exchanger.

In squid nerves the Na + -Ca 2+ exchanger is up-regulated by ATP and phosphoarginine (PA). ATP regulation involves drastic alterations in the Na