Vanadate is used as a tool to trap magnesium nucleotides in the catalytic site of ATPases. However, it has also been reported to activate ATP-sensitive potassium (K ATP ) channels in the absence of nucleotides. K ATP channels comprise Kir6.2 and sulfonylurea receptor subunits (SUR1 in pancreatic beta cells, SUR2A in cardiac and skeletal muscle, and SUR2B in smooth muscle). We explored the effect of vanadate (2 mM
ATP-sensitive potassium (K ATP )1 channels are found in a variety of tissues where they couple changes in cellular metabolism to electrical activity and potassium fluxes (1-3). Molecular cloning of these channels has revealed that they consist of two distinct types of subunit (a pore-forming subunit (Kir6.2) and a sulfonylurea receptor subunit (SUR1 in pancreatic beta cells, SUR2A in cardiac and skeletal muscle, and SUR2B in smooth muscle)) that associate in a 4:4 stoichiometry to form an octameric K ATP channel. (4 -12). The sulfonylurea receptor subunit belongs to the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter family and is characterized by multiple transmembrane domains and two large cytosolic loops that contain consensus sequences for nucleotide binding and hydrolysis (4,13 Vanadate is routinely used as a tool to trap magnesium nucleotides in the catalytic site of ATPases. ADP is trapped by vanadate both as a result of ATP hydrolysis and also when it is added directly to the solution (22). This is likely to be because orthovanadate acts as an analogue of phosphate. Among eukaryotic ABC transporters, vanadate trapping has been demonstrated for both MDR (18) and MRP (19). Photoaffinity labeling experiments with 8-azido-[ 32 P]ATP have revealed that ATP binds with high affinity to NBD1 of SUR1 and that MgADP binds to NBD2 (23). Unlike other ABC transporters, however, nucleotide binding to SUR1 is not enhanced by vanadate (23).The effects of vanadate on K ATP channel currents are variable. It has been reported to enhance the activity of K ATP channels in skeletal muscle (24) and in ventricular myocytes (25), but it had no effect on the cloned K ATP channel Kir6.2/ SUR1 in the presence of magnesium nucleotides (16). One explanation for these disparate findings is that different types of K ATP channel exhibit different sensitivities to vanadate. Another reason may be that vanadate interacts with a third protein, not present in the heterologous expression system, to modulate K ATP channel activity. A third possibility is that, because vanadate exists in solution in a number of different polymeric forms (e.g. orthovanadate and decavanadate), the concentration of the different vanadate complexes might vary in the experimental solutions used by different investigators.In this paper, we examine the effects of orthovanadate and decavanadate on the activity of cloned K ATP channels containing different types of SUR subunit, heterologously expressed in Xenopus oocytes. We show that the major effects of vanadate on K ATP channel activity are mediated via the sulfonylurea receptor subunit, with different SURs producin...