Identification and characterization of the dihydropyridine-binding subunit of the skeletal muscle dihydropyridine receptor.

Photoaffinity labeling of isolated triads and purified dihydropyridine receptor with [3H]azidopine and (+)-[3H]PN200-110 has been used to identify and characterize the dihydropyridine-binding subunit of the 1,4-dihydropyridine receptor of rabbit skeletal muscle. The 1,4-dihydropyridine receptor purified from rabbit skeletal muscle triads contains four protein subunits of 175,000, 170,000, 52,000, and 32,000 Da (Leung, A., Imagawa, T., and Campbell, K. P. (1987) J. Biol. Chem. 262, 7943-7946). Photoaffinity labeling of isolated triads with [3H]azidopine resulted in specific and covalent incorporation of [3H]azidopine into only the 170,000-Da subunit of the dihydropyridine receptor and not into the 175,000-Da glycoprotein subunit of the receptor. The [3H]azidopine-labeled 170,000-Da subunit was separated from the 175,000-Da glycoprotein subunit by sequential elution from a wheat germ agglutinin-Sepharose column with 1% sodium dodecyl sulfate followed by 200 mM N-acetylglucosamine. Photoaffinity labeling of purified dihydropyridine receptor with [3H]azidopine or (+)-[3H]PN200-110 also resulted in the specific and covalent incorporation of either ligand into only the 170,000-Da subunit. Therefore, our results show that the dihydropyridine-binding subunit of the skeletal muscle 1,4-dihydropyridine receptor is the 170,000-Da subunit and not the 175,000-Da glycoprotein subunit.