Phosphorylation of the 49-kDa putative subunit of the chick cerebellar kainate receptor and its regulation by kainatergic ligands.

The traffic of ions through the kainic acid (KA) receptor/channels present on chick cerebellar glia is modulated by intracellular events likely to involve phosphorylation reactions. The protein carrying the KA binding sites has been isolated from chick cerebellum and shown to be composed of a 49-kDa polypeptide. Its primary structure, established via cDNA cloning, shows the presence of two putative phosphorylation sites. We report here that this 49-kDa polypeptide is a substrate of the cAMP-dependent protein kinase which catalyzes the incorporation of up to 2 mol of phosphate/mol of KA binding site. KA prevents this phosphorylation reaction in a concentration range similar to that needed to activate the KA receptor/channels but higher by 3 orders of magnitude than that needed to saturate the KA binding sites. Kainatergic ligands produce similar effects to those of KA, but 1 mM N-methyl-D-aspartic acid and 1 mM quisqualic acid have no effect. However, 0.01 mM quisqualic acid prevents the inhibitory action of KA. These results raise the possibility that the phosphorylation of KA receptor/channels in their cellular environment is negatively regulated by KA.