The 5-hydroxytryptamine 3 (5-HT 3 ) receptor is a member of a superfamily of ligand-gated ion channels, which includes nicotinic acetylcholine, ␥-aminobutyric acid, and glycine receptors. The receptors are either cation or anion selective, leading to their distinctive involvement in either excitatory or inhibitory neurotransmission. Using a combination of site-directed mutagenesis and electrophysiological characterization of homomeric 5-HT 3A receptors expressed in HEK293 cells, we have identified a set of mutations that convert the ion selectivity of the 5-HT 3A receptor from cationic to anionic; these were substitution of V13T in M2 together with neutralization of glutamate residues (E؊1A) and the adjacent insertion of a proline residue (P؊1) in the M1-M2 loop. Mutant receptors showed significant chloride permeability (P Cl /P Na ؍ 12.3, P Na /P Cl ؍ 0.08), whereas WT receptors are predominantly permeable to sodium (P Na /P Cl > 20, P Cl /P Na < 0.05). Since the equivalent mutations have previously been shown to convert ␣7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors from cationic to anionic (Galzi J.-L., Devillers-Thiery, A, Hussy, N., Bertrand, S. Changeux, J. P., and Bertrand, D. (1992) Nature 359, 500 -505) and, recently, the converse mutations have allowed the construction of a cation selective glycine receptor (Keramidas, A., Moorhouse, A. J., French, C. R., Schofield, P. R., and Barry, P. H. (2000) Biophys. J. 78, 247-259), it appears that the determinants of ion selectivity represent a conserved feature of the ligand-gated ion channel superfamily.
5-HT 31 receptors are ligand-gated ion channels (LGICs) whose activation results in membrane depolarization due to the gating of an integral cation-selective channel (3, 4). 5-HT 3 receptors can exist as homomeric assemblies of 5-HT 3A receptor subunits or heteromeric assemblies of 5-HT 3A and 5-HT 3B receptor subunits; these have distinct physical properties (5, 6). 5-HT 3 receptors form part of a phylogenetically linked superfamily of LGIC, which is typified by the nicotinic acetylcholine (nACh) receptor, also includes the glycine and ␥-aminobutyric acid type A receptors and is thought to have arisen from a common ancestor over 2000 million years ago (7). All of these receptors are believed to be constructed from a pseudopentameric arrangement of subunits around a central water-filled pore. Individual subunits are predicted to contain a large Nterminal domain and four transmembrane spanning domains (M1-M4), arranged such that M2 (see Fig. 1 for residue numbering and lettering in MZ) delineates the wall of the channel. Agonist binding to the N-terminal domain results in a conformational change that is communicated to the pore domain, resulting in the opening of the channel. Evidence suggests that as well as the conservation of structural features, the underlying molecular mechanisms of operation of these receptors are also conserved (8,9). However, once the channels have opened, one crucial difference becomes clear; whereas the integral ion channels of the 5-HT 3 a...