Influence of Permeant Ions on Gating in Cyclic Nucleotide–gated Channels

Cyclic nucleotide–gated channels are key components in the transduction of visual and olfactory signals where their role is to respond to changes in the intracellular concentration of cyclic nucleotides. Although these channels poorly select between physiologically relevant monovalent cations, the gating by cyclic nucleotide is different in the presence of Na⁺ or K⁺ ions. This property was investigated using rod cyclic nucleotide–gated channels formed by expressing the subunit 1 (or α) in HEK293 cells. In the presence of K⁺ as the permeant ion, the affinity for cGMP is higher than the affinity measured in the presence of Na⁺. At the single channel level, subsaturating concentrations of cGMP show that the main effect of the permeant K⁺ ions is to prolong the time channels remain open without major changes in the shut time distribution. In addition, the maximal open probability was higher when K⁺ was the permeant ion (0.99 for K⁺ vs. 0.95 for Na⁺) due to an increase in the apparent mean open time. Similarly, in the presence of saturating concentrations of cAMP, known to bind but unable to efficiently open the channel, permeant K⁺ ions also prolong the time channels visit the open state. Together, these results suggest that permeant ions alter the stability of the open conformation by influencing of the O→C transition.