terminal cytoplasmic tails of chloride/bicarbonate anion exchangers (AE) bind cytosolic carbonic anhydrase II (CAII) to form a bicarbonate transport metabolon, a membrane protein complex that accelerates transmembrane bicarbonate flux. To determine whether interaction with CAII affects the downregulated in adenoma (DRA) chloride/bicarbonate exchanger, anion exchange activity of DRA-transfected HEK-293 cells was monitored by following changes in intracellular pH associated with bicarbonate transport. DRA-mediated bicarbonate transport activity of 18 Ϯ 1 mM H ϩ equivalents/min was inhibited 53 Ϯ 2% by 100 mM of the CAII inhibitor, acetazolamide, but was unaffected by the membrane-impermeant carbonic anhydrase inhibitor, 1-[5-sulfamoyl-1,3,4-thiadiazol-2-yl-(aminosulfonyl-4-phenyl)]-2,6-dimethyl-4-phenyl-pyridinium perchlorate. Compared with AE1, the COOH-terminal tail of DRA interacted weakly with CAII. Overexpression of a functionally inactive CAII mutant, V143Y, reduced AE1 transport activity by 61 Ϯ 4% without effect on DRA transport activity (105 Ϯ 7% transport activity relative to DRA alone). We conclude that cytosolic CAII is required for full DRA-mediated bicarbonate transport. However, DRA differs from other bicarbonate transport proteins because its transport activity is not stimulated by direct interaction with CAII. metabolon; chloride/bicarbonate exchanger; downregulated in adenoma BICARBONATE METABOLISM is essential in humans, because carbon dioxide is the metabolic end product of respiratory oxidation and CO 2 /HCO 3 Ϫ is the body's primary pH buffer system. The bicarbonate transport superfamily of genes (SLC4 and SLC26 gene families), responsible for transmembrane movement of membrane-impermeant HCO 3 Ϫ , comprises the Cl Ϫ /HCO 3 Ϫ anion exchanger (AE) family (1,19,20), the Na ϩ /HCO 3 Ϫ cotransporter proteins (NBC) (3, 4), and the recently identified proteins pendrin (9, 32, 37) and downregulated in adenoma (DRA) (23, 27, 48).Several lines of evidence have demonstrated an interaction between cytosolic carbonic anhydrase II (CAII) and the AE1, AE2, and AE3 anion exchanger isoforms. Binding of erythrocyte membranes to CAII increased CAII enzymatic activity (25), which suggests an interaction between these two proteins. CAII can be coimmunoprecipitated with solubilized AE1 and incubation with an extracellular lectin-caused agglutination of AE1 and a similar redistribution of CAII on the cytosolic surface of the erythrocyte membrane (45). A sensitive microtiter binding assay, using truncation and point mutation of the AE1 COOH terminus, led to the identification of the binding site of CAII in AE1 as LDADD (amino acids 886-890) (46) and the basic amino-terminal region of CAII as the binding site for AE1 (44).The functional consequences of the AE/CAII interaction have been studied (42). Using HEK-293 cells transiently transfected with AE1 cDNA, we determined that inhibition of endogenous CAII activity with acetazolamide resulted in a decrease of AE1 transport activity. Mutation of the AE1, LDADD, and CA...