Effect of cystic fibrosis-associated mutations in the fourth intracellular loop of cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator

The cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) contains multiple membrane spanning sequences that form a Cl- channel pore and cytosolic domains that control the opening and closing of the channel. The fourth intracellular loop (ICL4), which connects the tenth and eleventh transmembrane spans, has a primary sequence that is highly conserved across species, is the site of a preserved sequence motif in the ABC transporter family, and contains a relatively large number of missense mutations associated with cystic fibrosis (CF). To investigate the role of ICL4 in CFTR function and to learn how CF mutations in this region disrupt function, we studied several CF-associated ICL4 mutants. We found that most ICL4 mutants disrupted the biosynthetic processing of CFTR, although not as severely as the most common Delta F508 mutation. The mutations had no discernible effect on the channel's pore properties; but some altered gating behavior, the response to increasing concentrations of ATP, and stimulation in response to pyrophosphate. These effects on activity were similar to those observed with mutations in the nucleotide-binding domains, suggesting that ICL4 might help couple activity of the nucleotide-binding domains to gating of the Cl- channel pore. The data also explain how these mutations cause a loss of CFTR function and suggest that some patients with mutations in ICL4 may have a milder clinical phenotype because they retain partial activity of CFTR at the cell membrane.