LINGO1 Is a Regulatory Subunit of Large Conductance, + Ca2 -Activated Potassium Channels
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LINGO1 is a regulatory subunit of large conductance, + Ca2 -activated potassium channels Srikanth Dudema, Roddy J. Largea, Shruti Kulkarnia, Heather McClaffertyb, Irina G. Tikhonovac, Gerard P. Sergeanta, Keith D. Thornburya, Michael J. Shipstonb, Brian A. Perrinod, and Mark A. Hollywooda,1 aSmooth Muscle Research Centre, Dundalk Institute of Technology, Louth A81 K584, Ireland; bCentre for Discovery Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9XD, Scotland; cSchool of Pharmacy, Queen’s University of Belfast, Belfast BT9 7BL, Northern Ireland; and dDepartment of Physiology and Cell Biology, Reno School of Medicine, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557 Edited by Richard W. Aldrich, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, and approved December 17, 2019 (received for review September 26, 2019) LINGO1 is a transmembrane protein that is up-regulated in the Coexpression of LINGO1 Induces Inactivation cerebellum of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Essential In our first series of experiments, we compared BK currents in Tremor (ET). Patients with additional copies of the LINGO1 gene excised patches from HEK cells transfected with BKα cDNA also present with tremor. Pharmacological or genetic ablation of only, with those cotransfected with BKα and LINGO1 cDNA. As 2+ + large conductance Ca -activated K (BK) channels also result in shown in Fig. 1A, large, noisy, sustained outward currents were tremor and motor disorders. We hypothesized that LINGO1 is a recorded from BKα only inside-out patches, in response to + regulatory BK channel subunit. We show that 1) LINGO1 coimmu- depolarizing steps of up to +200 mV (Ca2 concentration on the noprecipitated with BK channels in human brain, 2) coexpression 2+ cytosolic side, [Ca ]i, = 100 nM). When conductance/voltage of LINGO1 and BK channels resulted in rapidly inactivating BK (G/V) curves were constructed (Fig. 1C, filled squares) and fitted currents, and 3) LINGO1 reduced the membrane surface expression with a Boltzmann function (solid line, Fig. 1C), it was apparent of BK channels. These results suggest that LINGO1 is a regulator of V + ± “ ” that these currents were half maximally activated ( 1/2)at 161 BK channels, which causes a functional knockdown of these cur- n = rents and may contribute to the tremor associated with increased 1mV( 6), in agreement with previous studies (20). However, LINGO1 levels. when recordings were made from cells cotransfected with cDNA for BKα and LINGO1 (BKα:LINGO1, Fig. 1B), the currents BK channels | leucine-rich repeat containing proteins | LINGO1 | accessory differed markedly in several respects: 1) The sustained BK cur- subunits | Parkinson’s disease rents were absent and, instead, rapidly and completely inactivating 2+ currents were recorded (Fig. 1B,[Ca ]i = 100 nM). Inactivation of BKα:LINGO1 currents was faster at more positive potentials INGO1 is one of four leucine rich repeat and immunoglobin- (Fig. 1 B, Inset). These currents are reminiscent of the transient like (LRRIG) domain-containing proteins predominantly L BK currents recorded in murine Purkinje neurons (21, 22), which expressed in the central nervous system (1–3) and may play a role in both Essential Tremor (ET) and Parkinson’s disease (PD), may be due to LINGO1 or other regulatory BK subunits. 2) The – BKα:LINGO1 tail currents deactivated more slowly than BK since it is up-regulated in the cerebellum of these patients (4 6). V ∼− Furthermore, a recent study demonstrated that adults with an controls. 3) Their activation 1/2 was shifted by 50 mV (open symbols, Fig. 1C)comparedtoBKα alone, which was similar to extra copy of the LINGO1 gene also present with tremor, sug- γ α gesting that increased levels of LINGO1 protein could be a caus- the effect of subunits on BK channels (18, 19). 4) BK :LINGO1 ative factor in tremor (7). Calcium-activated potassium (BK) channels are widely expressed, Significance transmembrane proteins that govern smooth muscle (8) and neuronal excitability (9). Pharmacological blockade (10–12), or Large conductance calcium-activated potassium (BK) channels molecular ablation (13, 14), of these channels also induces tremor. are ubiquitously expressed and alter cellular excitability. These For example, ingestion of indole diterpenoids (11, 12), the caus- channels are formed by four pore-forming α subunits whose ative agents of “Rye Grass Staggers” (10), induces motor im- biophysical and pharmacological properties are modulated by − − pairment and tremor (12). Similarly, global null BK / (13) and regulatory β and γ subunits. LINGO1 is a protein, previously − − cerebellar Purkinje cell-specific BK / mice (14) exhibit motor shown to be upregulated in both Parkinson’s disease and Es- impairment and tremor. It is clear, therefore, that inhibition of BK sential Tremor. Consequently, we investigated its effects on BK channels, or enhanced expression of LINGO1, are both associated channels and demonstrate that LINGO1 associates with these with motor disorders and tremor. channels in human cerebellum. LINGO1 causes BK channels to The biophysical and pharmacological properties of BK chan- inactivate and to open at more negative potentials. Further- more, coexpression of BK with LINGO1 also led to a reduction nels are modulated by regulatory β1−4 (15–17) and γ1–4 subunits (18, 19), which are expressed in a tissue-dependent manner. in BK channels in the membrane. Our data support the idea Similar to LINGO1, BKγ subunits are leucine-rich repeat con- that LINGO1 is a regulatory subunit of BK channels. taining (LRRC) proteins but lack an Ig1 domain of LINGO1 and contain 6 rather than 12 extracellular LRRC domains. BKγ sub- Author contributions: S.K., H.M., I.G.T., G.P.S., K.D.T., M.J.S., B.A.P., and M.A.H. designed research; S.D., R.J.L., S.K., H.M., I.G.T., and B.A.P. performed research; S.D., R.J.L., S.K., units have been shown to shift BK channel activation to negative H.M., I.G.T., G.P.S., K.D.T., M.J.S., B.A.P., and M.A.H. analyzed data; and G.P.S., K.D.T., voltages (18, 19). Since LINGO1 shares a number of structural M.J.S., B.A.P., and M.A.H. wrote the paper. features with BKγ subunits (18, 19), we hypothesized that it may The authors declare no competing interest. also be a novel regulatory subunit of BK channels. Here, we show This article is a PNAS Direct Submission. that LINGO1 induced rapid inactivation of BK channels, shifted This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- their activation to more negative potetials, and reduced their ex- NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND). pression in the plasma membrane. Moreover, it coimmunopre- 1To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: [email protected]. cipitated with BK channels in lysates of human cerebellar tissues. This article contains supporting information online at https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/ These data support the hypothesis that LINGO1 is a regulatory, doi:10.1073/pnas.1916715117/-/DCSupplemental. accessory subunit, which functionally “knocks down” BK channels. First published January 13, 2020. 2194–2200 | PNAS | January 28, 2020 | vol. 117 | no. 4 www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1916715117 Downloaded by guest on October 1, 2021 PHYSIOLOGY Fig. 1. Coexpression of BKα and LINGO1 cDNA produces inactivating currents that activate at negative potentials. A shows a typical record of an inside-out + patch from a HEK cell transiently expressing BKα channels and exposed to 100 nM Ca2 . Currents were evoked by stepping from −100 mV to +200 mV for 50 ms from a holding potential of −60 mV. Patches were repolarized to −80 mV to elicit tail currents. B shows typical inactivating currents recorded using the same protocol from a patch obtained from HEK cells cotransfected with BKα and LINGO1 cDNA. As shown by Inset in B, inactivation had an apparent voltage sensitivity (n = 6). (C) When GV curves were constructed from these currents and fitted with a Boltzmann function (solid lines), BKα:LINGO1 currents activated at significantly more negative potentials (n = 6) compared to BKα channels (P < 0.001). D shows the main structural features of the LINGO1 protein including the extracellular domains (black), the transmembrane domain (green), and the intracellular tail (purple, yellow, blue, and red). (E) Application of trypsin − (0.3 mg·mL 1) gradually removed inactivation of BKα:LINGO1 currents and increased current amplitude evoked by a step to +160 mV. The green line rep- resents a control current, prior to application of Trypsin. F shows a summary of four similar experiments in which the time course of the effects of trypsin were recorded. Currents remained significantly increased above control after trypsin treatment (P < 0.05). The red dotted lines represent zero current. + cotransfection reduced the amplitude of BK currents, since ∼5% resulted in currents which inactivated in 100 nM Ca2 at +200 mV of patches had currents >1nAat+160 mV (peak current 451 ± with τi = 18 ± 3ms(n = 8). 135 pA, mean ± SEM, n = 71), compared to ∼75% of BK controls (peak current 4,988 ± 632 pA mean ± SEM, n = 43, P < Inactivation Was Abolished When the Distal C Terminus of 0.001, ANOVA Tukey’s multiple comparison). 5) The inactivation LINGO1 Was Absent 2+ V1/2 of BKα:LINGO1 currents shifted ∼−80 mV when [Ca ]i was Although the crystal structure of the extracellular domain of increased from 100 nM to 1 μM(SI Appendix, Fig. S1 A–C). LINGO1 has been solved (23), little is known about the structure To confirm that the inactivating currents were carried through of the transmembrane domain or the proposed intracellular tail. BK channels, we assessed the effects of external iberiotoxin Therefore, we created a homology model of LINGO1, in which (IbTx) on whole-cell recordings of cells transfected with either residues 551–583 formed a single transmembrane helix (green BKα or BKα:LINGO1 cDNA (SI Appendix, Fig.