To determine whether endogenous P-glycoprotein, the MDR1 gene product that functions as a drug transport pump, is a volume-sensitive Cl ؊ channel molecule or a protein kinase C-mediated regulator of the Cl ؊ channel, whole-cell patch-clamp and molecular biological experiments were carried out in a human small intestinal epithelial cell line. Endogenous expression of P-glycoprotein was confirmed by Northern blot analysis, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, Western blot analysis, and immunostaining. The P-glycoprotein expression was abolished by the antisense (but not sense) oligonucleotide for the MDR1 gene, whereas the magnitude of the Cl ؊ current activated by osmotic swelling was not distinguishable between both antisense-and sense-treated cells. The volume-sensitive Cl ؊ currents were not specifically affected by the anti-P-glycoprotein monoclonal antibodies, MRK16, C219, and UIC2. An inhibitor of P-glycoprotein-mediated pump activity, verapamil, was found to never affect the Cl ؊ current. A substrate for the P-glycoprotein-mediated drug pump, vincristine or daunomycin, did not prevent swelling-induced activation of the Cl ؊ current. Furthermore, the Cl ؊ current was not affected by an activator of protein kinase C (12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate or 1-oleoyl-2-acetyl-sn-glycerol). Thus, it is concluded that the endogenous P-glycoprotein molecule is not itself a volume-sensitive Cl ؊ channel nor a protein kinase C-mediated regulator of the channel in the human epithelial cells.Cell volume regulation is one of the most fundamental functions of living cells. A variety of ion channels and transporters are known to be activated upon osmotic cell swelling and involved in volume regulation (1-3). Among them, volume-sensitive Cl Ϫ channels have recently been studied in a variety of cell species (4 -16). However, the volume-sensitive Cl Ϫ channel molecule has not as yet been identified. P-glycoprotein, the MDR1 gene product, which is an ATPdependent transporter responsible for multidrug resistance to many anti-neoplastic agents (17), was recently proposed as a candidate molecule of the volume-sensitive Cl Ϫ channel (18, 19). Higgins and his collaborators (18) suggested that P-glycoprotein (P-gp) 1 is bifunctional, switching between a drug pump upon exposure to its substrates and a Cl Ϫ channel upon osmotic swelling, based on the following observations. 1) Volume-sensitive Cl Ϫ conductances correlated with P-gp expression induced by transfection with MDR1 (18); 2) inhibitors of the drug pump inhibited the volume-sensitive Cl Ϫ conductance (18, 20); 3) the volume-sensitive Cl Ϫ conductance was abolished by treatment with antisense oligonucleotides against the 5Ј-end of the MDR1 gene (18); and 4) intracellular administration of a substrate for the P-gp-mediated drug pump prevented swelling-induced activation of the Cl Ϫ conductance but failed to inhibit the preactivated volume-sensitive Cl Ϫ conductance (19,20).Subsequently, many laboratories have failed to find any correlation between the size of vol...