Experiments to identify additional elements besides the CaM-binding
site that are necessary to produce a CaM effect on human CONEα.
(A) (Left) Schematic diagrams indicating
the structures of various chimeras and mutants from rat OLFα and
human CONEα. The locations of the CaM-binding site, the cyclic
nucleotide-binding site, and the boundaries of the transmembrane
domains (TMDs) are indicated. Numbers indicate the last and first
residues of the respective sequences at the junctions or deletions.
MG84 has the CaM-binding site deleted. MG92 has a stretch of residues
(A117–T141) on CONEα deleted to match up the sequence length on
OLFα downstream of the CaM-binding site. Hatched region indicates a
region in which the CONEα sequence is modified. For MG75, the
mutations A71Q, S74V, F78G, and R82D have been carried out in the
CaM-binding site of CONEα to make it more resemble that on OLFα.
For ChiMG11, the serial mutations are detailed in C. Two
other chimeras were made but did not produce any cGMP-activated current
when expressed: one with a CONEα N terminus in an OLFα background
and the other with OLFα TMDs in a CONEα background.
(Center) Presence (+) or absence (−) of a CaM effect,
assayed electrophysiologically as in Fig. 2 with a nonsaturating
concentration of cGMP and 50 μM Ca2+ and 250 nM CaM; the
number in parentheses indicate number of experiments, some of which
were in common with those at right. (Right) cGMP
K1/2 values (at −60 mV) for the respective
constructs in the absence of CaM and Ca2+, estimated by
using three or more concentrations of cGMP. Averaged data with SDs and
numbers of experiments are indicated. (B) Sequence
alignments of the N-terminal regions of rat OLFα, human CONEα, and
ChiMG11 by using the clustalw algorithm. The CaM-binding
region is underlined. (C) Serially cumulative mutations
(as indicated by flow arrows) to generate ChiMG11 from ChiMG10. The
residues mutated are numbered according to the wild-type CONEα
sequence. The depictions of CaM effect and cGMP
K1/2 values in control conditions have the
same meanings as in A.