Activation of Shaker Potassium Channels

This second of three papers, in which we functionally characterize activation gating in Shaker potassium channels, focuses on the properties of a mutant channel (called V2), in which the leucine at position 382 (in the Shaker B sequence) is mutated to valine. The general properties of V2's ionic and gating currents are consistent with changes in late gating transitions, in particular, with V2 disrupting the positively cooperative gating process of the normally activating wild type (WT) channel. An analysis of forward and backward rate constants, analogous to that used for WT in the previous paper, indicates that V2 causes little change in the rates for most of the transitions in the activation path, but causes large changes in the backward rates of the final two transitions. Single channel data indicate that the V2 mutation causes moderate changes in the rates of transitions to states that are not in the activation path, but little change in the rates from these states. V2's data also yield insights into the general properties of the activation gating process that could not be readily obtained from the WT channel, including evidence that intermediate transitions have rapid backward rates, and an estimate of a total charge 2 e0 for the final two transitions. Taken together, these data will help constrain an activation gating model in the third paper of this series, while also providing an explanation for V2's effects.