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Simple binding of protein kinase A prior to phosphorylation allows CFTR anion channels to be opened by nucleotides.

ABSTRACT: The Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator (CFTR) anion channel is essential for epithelial salt-water balance. CFTR mutations cause cystic fibrosis, a lethal incurable disease. In cells CFTR is activated through the cAMP signaling pathway, overstimulation of which during cholera leads to CFTR-mediated intestinal salt-water loss. Channel activation is achieved by phosphorylation of its regulatory (R) domain by cAMP-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit (PKA). Here we show using two independent approaches--an ATP analog that can drive CFTR channel gating but is unsuitable for phosphotransfer by PKA, and CFTR mutants lacking phosphorylatable serines--that PKA efficiently opens CFTR channels through simple binding, under conditions that preclude phosphorylation. Unlike when phosphorylation happens, CFTR activation by PKA binding is completely reversible. Thus, PKA binding promotes release of the unphosphorylated R domain from its inhibitory position, causing full channel activation, whereas phosphorylation serves only to maintain channel activity beyond termination of the PKA signal. The results suggest two levels of CFTR regulation in cells: irreversible through phosphorylation, and reversible through R-domain binding to PKA--and possibly also to other members of a large network of proteins known to interact with the channel.

SUBMITTER: Mihalyi C

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7474675 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Simple binding of protein kinase A prior to phosphorylation allows CFTR anion channels to be opened by nucleotides.

Mihályi Csaba C Iordanov Iordan I Töröcsik Beáta B Csanády László L

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20200817 35

The Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator (CFTR) anion channel is essential for epithelial salt-water balance. CFTR mutations cause cystic fibrosis, a lethal incurable disease. In cells CFTR is activated through the cAMP signaling pathway, overstimulation of which during cholera leads to CFTR-mediated intestinal salt-water loss. Channel activation is achieved by phosphorylation of its regulatory (R) domain by cAMP-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit (PKA). Here we show using ...[more]

PMID: 32817533

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Project description:CFTR (cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator), the protein whose dysfunction causes cystic fibrosis, is a chloride ion channel whose gating is controlled by interactions of MgATP with CFTR's two cytoplasmic nucleotide binding domains, but only after several serines in CFTR's regulatory (R) domain have been phosphorylated by cAMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA). Whereas eight R-domain serines have previously been shown to be phosphorylated in purified CFTR, it is not known how individual phosphoserines regulate channel gating, although two of them, at positions 737 and 768, have been suggested to be inhibitory. Here we show, using mass spectrometric analysis, that Ser 768 is the first site phosphorylated in purified R-domain protein, and that it and five other R-domain sites are already phosphorylated in resting Xenopus oocytes expressing wild-type (WT) human epithelial CFTR. The WT channels have lower activity than S768A channels (with Ser 768 mutated to Ala) in resting oocytes, confirming the inhibitory influence of phosphoserine 768. In excised patches exposed to a range of PKA concentrations, the open probability (P(o)) of mutant S768A channels exceeded that of WT CFTR channels at all [PKA], and the half-maximally activating [PKA] for WT channels was twice that for S768A channels. As the open burst duration of S768A CFTR channels was almost double that of WT channels, at both low (55 nM) and high (550 nM) [PKA], we conclude that the principal mechanism by which phosphoserine 768 inhibits WT CFTR is by hastening the termination of open channel bursts. The right-shifted P(o)-[PKA] curve of WT channels might explain their slower activation, compared with S768A channels, at low [PKA]. The finding that phosphorylation kinetics of WT or S768A R-domain peptides were similar provides no support for an alternative explanation, that early phosphorylation of Ser 768 in WT CFTR might also impair subsequent phosphorylation of stimulatory R-domain serines. The observed reduced sensitivity to activation by [PKA] imparted by Ser 768 might serve to ensure activation of WT CFTR by strong stimuli while dampening responses to weak signals.

Dataset Information

Simple binding of protein kinase A prior to phosphorylation allows CFTR anion channels to be opened by nucleotides.

Publications

Simple binding of protein kinase A prior to phosphorylation allows CFTR anion channels to be opened by nucleotides.

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