Replacement of lysine‐181 by aspartic acid in the third transmembrane region of endothelin type B receptor reduces its affinity to endothelin peptides and sarafotoxin 6c without affecting G protein coupling

A conserved aspartic acid residue in the third transmembrance region of many of the G protein‐coupled receptors has been shown to play a role in ligand binding. In the case of endothelin receptors, however, a lysine residue replaces this conserved aspartic acid residue. To access the importance of this residue in ligand binding, we have replaced it with an aspartic acid in the rat endothelin type B (ETb) receptor by PCR mediated mutagenesis. The binding characteristics and functional properties of both the wild type and mutant receptors were determined in COS‐7 cells transiently expressing the cloned receptor cDNAs. Using 125 I‐ET‐I as the radioactive peptide ligend in displacement binding studies, the wild type receptor displayed a typical non‐isopeptide‐selective binding profile with similar IC 50 values (0.2–0.6 nM) for all three endothelin peptides (ET‐1, ET‐2, and ET‐3) and sarafotoxin 6c (SRTX 6c). Interestingly, the mutant receptor showed an increase in IC 50 values for ET‐1 (5nM), ET‐2 (27nM), and ET‐3 (127nM) but displayed a much larger increase in 1C 50 value for SRTX 6c ( > 10uM). The lysine mutant receptor still elicited full incositol phosphate (IP) turnover responses in the presence of saturating concentrations of endothelins (10nM of ET‐1, 100nM of ET‐2, or 1uM of ET‐3), indicating that the mutation (K181D) did not affect the coupling of mutant receptor to the appropriate G protein. These demonstrate that lysine‐181 on the receptor is important for binding ET peptides; however, it is required for binding the ETb selective agonist‐SRTX5c. © 1992 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.