PHYSIOLOGICAL REVIEWS   Vol. 79 No. 1 January 1999, pp. S77-S107
Copyright ©1999 The American Physiological Society

Control of CFTR Channel Gating by Phosphorylation and Nucleotide Hydrolysis

DAVID C. GADSBY AND ANGUS C. NAIRN

Laboratory of Cardiac/Membrane Physiology, and Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience, The Rockefeller University, New York, New York

Gadsby, David C., and Angus C. Nairn. Control of CTFR Channel Gating by Phosphorylation and Nucleotide Hydrolysis. Physiol. Rev. 79, Suppl.: S77-S107, 1999.  The cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) Cl channel is the protein product of the gene defective in cystic fibrosis, the most common lethal genetic disease among Caucasians. Unlike any other known ion channel, CFTR belongs to the ATP-binding cassette superfamily of transporters and, like all other family members, CFTR includes two cytoplasmic nucleotide-binding domains (NBDs), both of which bind and hydrolyze ATP. It appears that in a single open-close gating cycle, an individual CFTR channel hydrolyzes one ATP molecule at the NH₂-terminal NBD to open the channel, and then binds and hydrolyzes a second ATP molecule at the COOH-terminal NBD to close the channel. This complex coordinated behavior of the two NBDs is orchestrated by multiple protein kinase A-dependent phosphorylation events, at least some of which occur within the third large cytoplasmic domain, called the regulatory domain. Two or more kinds of protein phosphatases selectively dephosphorylate distinct sites. Under appropriately controlled conditions of progressive phosphorylation or dephosphorylation, three functionally different phosphoforms of a single CFTR channel can be distinguished on the basis of channel opening and closing kinetics. Recording single CFTR channel currents affords an unprecedented opportunity to reproducibly examine, and manipulate, individual ATP hydrolysis cycles in a single molecule, in its natural environment, in real time.