A cyclic AMP-stimulated chloride conductance appears when the cystic fibrosis gene is expressed in non-epithelial cells by infection with recombinant viruses. Cyclic AMP-stimulated conductance in this system is mediated by the same ohmic, low-conductance Cl- channel as in human secretory epithelia, but control of this channel by phosphorylation has not been directly demonstrated. Here we report the appearance of the low-conductance Cl- channel in Chinese hamster ovary cells after stable transfection with the cystic fibrosis gene. The channel is regulated on-cell by membrane-permeant analogues of cAMP and off-cell by protein kinases A and C and by alkaline phosphatase. These results are further evidence that the cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator is a Cl- channel which can be activated by specific phosphorylation events and inactivated by dephosphorylation; they reveal an unsuspected synergism between converging kinase regulatory pathways.
The cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) is a phosphorylation-regulated Cl- channel. In most mammalian cells, the functional consequences of the most common CF mutation, delta F508-CFTR, cannot be assessed as the mutant protein undergoes biosynthetic arrest. However, function can be studied in the baculovirus-insect cell expression system where delta F508-CFTR does not appear to undergo such arrest. Our results show that phosphorylation-regulated Cl- channel activity of delta F508-CFTR is similar to that of wild-type CFTR. This observation was confirmed in comparative studies of purified delta F508-CFTR and CFTR reconstituted in planar lipid bilayers. Therefore, we suggest that this common mutation does not result in a significant alteration in CFTR function.
Hormonal regulation of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) Cl- channel is largely mediated via cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA). CFTR contains 10 dibasic consensus sites for potential PKA phosphorylation ((R/K) (R/K)X(S*/T*)). Previous studies (Chang, X.-B., Tabcharani, J. A., Hou, Y.-X., Jensen, T. J., Kartner, N., Alon, N., Hanrahan, J. W., and Riordan, J.R (1993) J. Biol. Chem. 268, 11304-11311) showed that approximately 25% of the CFTR wild-type response to PKA activation remained upon inhibition of most detectable phosphorylation by in vitro mutagenesis of all 10 dibasic consensus sites (10SA CFTR). To identify potential additional sites responsible for the residual activity, large amounts of this mutant CFTR were phosphorylated with PKA using high specific activity [gamma-32P]ATP. Cyanogen bromide cleavage indicated that a large portion of the observed PKA phosphorylation occurred within a 5.8-kDa fragment of the R domain between residues 722-773. Removal of serines at potential PKA sites in this fragment showed that Ser-753 accounted for all of the gamma-32P labeling of the 5.8-kDa peptide. Replacement of Ser-753 with alanine reduced the level of residual CFTR activity by a further 40%, indicating that phosphorylation at this previously unidentified site contributes to the activation of 10SA CFTR.
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