In animal cells, ATP binding cassette (ABC) proteins are a large family of transporters that includes the sulfonylurea receptor and the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR). These two ABC proteins possess an ion channel activity and bind specific sulfonylureas, such as glibenclamide, but homologs have not been identified in plant cells. We recently have shown that there is an ABC protein in guard cells that is involved in the control of stomatal movements and guard cell outward K ؉ current. Because the CFTR, a chloride channel, is sensitive to glibenclamide and able to interact with K ؉ channels, we investigated its presence in guard cells. Potent CFTR inhibitors, such as glibenclamide and diphenylamine-2-carboxylic acid, triggered stomatal opening in darkness. The guard cell protoplast slow anion current that was recorded using the whole-cell patch-clamp technique was inhibited rapidly by glibenclamide in a dose-dependent manner; the concentration producing half-maximum inhibition was at 3 M. Potassium channel openers, which bind to and act through the sulfonylurea receptor in animal cells, completely suppressed the stomatal opening induced by glibenclamide and recovered the glibenclamide-inhibited slow anion current. Abscisic acid is known to regulate slow anion channels and in our study was able to relieve glibenclamide inhibition of slow anion current. Moreover, in epidermal strip bioassays, the stomatal closure triggered by Ca 2 ؉ or abscisic acid was reversed by glibenclamide. These results suggest that the slow anion channel is an ABC protein or is tightly controlled by such a protein that interacts with the abscisic acid signal transduction pathway in guard cells.
INTRODUCTIONThe ATP binding cassette (ABC) superfamily is probably the largest and most diverse family of proteins that mediate ATP-dependent transfer of solutes across membranes in species ranging from Escherichia coli to humans (Higgins, 1992). These proteins have become of fundamental interest due to their involvement in numerous pathologies, such as cystic fibrosis, diabetes, or multidrug resistance (Demolombe and Escande, 1996). Among them, both the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) and the sulfonylurea receptor (SUR) exhibit either an ion channel activity and/or regulate heterologous channels (Higgins, 1995).The CFTR constitutes a chloride channel inhibited by diphenylamine-2-carboxylic acid (DPC; McCarty et al., 1993), which can control K ϩ channels (Valverde et al., 1995; McNicholas et al., 1996; Ishida-Takahashi et al., 1998). The SUR is tightly associated with an inward-rectifying potassium channel (Inagaki et al., 1995) to form the ATP-sensitive K ϩ channel. These channels and the CFTR are both receptors for sulfonylureas (Schmid-Antomarchi et al., 1987;Schultz et al., 1996) and are blocked by glibenclamide in numerous tissues (Sheppard and Welsh, 1992; Gopalakrishnan et al., 1993). The SUR is also the receptor for K ϩ channel openers (KCOs;Schwanstecher et al., 1998), such as crom...