Characterization of calcium-activated potassium channels in single smooth muscle cells using the patch-clamp technique.

Single-channel currents were recorded with the patch-clamp technique from freshly dissociated vertebrate smooth muscle cells from the stomach of Bufo marinus. Of the variety of channels observed, one displayed a large linear conductance of 250 pS (in symmetric 130 mM KCl) which in excised patches was shown to be highly K+ selective. The probability of the channel being open (Po) increased when [Ca2+]i was elevated and/or when the membrane potential was made more positive. Thus, the features of this channel resemble the large-conductance Ca2+-activated K+ channel found in a wide variety of cell types. The voltage sensitivity of the channel was studied in detail. For patches containing a single large-conductance channel a plot of Po versus membrane potential followed the Boltzmann relationship. Increasing [Ca2+]i shifted this plot to the left along the voltage axis to more negative potentials. Both the mean closed time and mean open time varied with potential as a single exponential with almost all of the voltage sensitivity of Po residing in the mean closed time. These results were verified with a series of experiments carried out at low Po (less than 0.1) in patches containing multiple (N) large-conductance channels. Here the ln (NPo) was a linear function of potential with an inverse slope of 9 mV. Almost all of the potential sensitivity lay in the mean closed time the natural log of which was also a linear function of potential with an inverse slope 11 mV in magnitude. The characteristics of this channel as well as the appearance of several of them in almost every patch suggest that they underlie the large peak outward macroscopic current found with whole-cell voltage-clamp studies.