M. Chahine et al., ELECTROPHYSIOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF CLONED SKELETAL AND CARDIAC-MUSCLE SODIUM-CHANNELS, American journal of physiology. Heart and circulatory physiology, 40(2), 1996, pp. 498-506
The alpha-subunit encoding for voltage-gated sodium channels rSkM1 (ra
t skeletal muscle subtype 1) and hH1 (human heart subtype 1) has been
cloned and expressed by various groups under various conditions in Xen
opus oocytes and the tsA201 (HEK 293) mammalian cell line derived from
human embryonic kidney cells. In this study, we have expressed hH1 an
d rSkM1 in tsA201 cells for comparison under the same conditions using
patch-clamp methods. Our results show significant differences in the
current-voltage (I-V) relationship, kinetics of current decay, voltage
dependence of steady-state inactivation, and the time constant for re
covery from inactivation. We studied several rSkM1/hH1 chimeric sodium
channels to identify the structural regions responsible for the diffe
rent biophysical behavior of the two channel subtypes. Exchanging the
interdomain (ID3-4) loops, thought to contain the inactivation particl
e, between rSkM1 and hH1 had no effect on the electrophysiological beh
aviors, including inactivation, indicating that the differences in cha
nnel subtype characteristics are determined by parts of the channel ot
her than the ID3-4 segment. The data on a chimeric channel in which D1
and D4 are derived from hH1 while D2 and D3 and the ID1-2, ID2-3, and
ID3-4 loops are from rSkM1 show that D1 and/or D4 seem to be responsi
ble for the slower kinetics of inactivation of hH1 while D2 and/or D3
appear to contain the determinants for the differences in the I-V rela
tionship, steady-state inactivation (h(infinity)) curve, and the kinet
ics of the recovery from inactivation.