Abstract

α-Latrotoxin binding to the calcium-independent receptor for α-latrotoxin (CIRL-1), a putative G-protein-coupled receptor, stimulates secretion from chromaffin and PC12 cells. Using patch clamp techniques and microspectrofluorimetry, we demonstrate that the interaction of α-latrotoxin with CIRL-1 produces a high conductance channel that permits increases in cytosolic Ca²⁺. α-Latrotoxin interaction with CIRL-1 transiently expressed in bovine chromaffin cells produced a 400-pS channel, which rarely closed under Ca²⁺-free conditions. The major effect of overexpressing CIRL-1 was to greatly increase the sensitivity of chromaffin cells to channel formation by α-latrotoxin. α-Latrotoxin interaction with CIRL-1 transiently overexpressed in non-neuronal human embryonic kidney 293 (HEK293) cells produced channels that were nearly identical with those observed in chromaffin cells. Channel currents were reduced by millimolar Ca²⁺. At α-latrotoxin concentrations below 500 pM, channel formation occurred many seconds after binding of toxin to CIRL-1 indicating distinct steps in channel formation. In all cases there was a rapid, sequential addition of channels once the first channel appeared. An analysis of CIRL-1 mutants indicated that channel formation in HEK293 cells is unlikely to be transduced by a G-protein-dependent mechanism. α-Latrotoxin interaction with a fusion construct composed of the extracellular domain of CIRL-1 anchored to the membrane by the transmembrane domain of vesicular stomatitis virus glycoprotein, and with neurexin 1α, an α-latrotoxin receptor structurally unrelated to CIRL-1, produced channels virtually identical with those observed with wild-type CIRL-1. We propose that α-latrotoxin receptors recruit toxin to facilitate its insertion across the membrane and that α-latrotoxin itself controls the conductance properties of the channels it produces.