Legends for supplementary figures

Figure 1. a. Peak calcium current was measured as a function of time prior and during application of 100 M GABA in the presence of the GABAA receptor antagonist bicuculline (100 M). Solid bar represents transmitter application. b. Effect of recombinant RGS12 on the magnitude of GABA-mediated inhibition of calcium current. Histogram shows the effect of injection of 2 nM RGS12 or control internal solution on the magnitude of voltage-dependent and –independent inhibition. Data represent mean values + S.E.M. of 5 independent experiments. c. Current-voltage relationship for control and antibody-injected cells. Currents were measured at the indicated voltages stepping from –80 mV. Prepulse was applied prior to the test pulse to measure voltage-independent inhibition.

Figure 2. a. Time course of the GABA-mediated voltage-independent inhibition in the presence of fusion proteins containing the PTB ands PDZ domains from RGS12. b.Traces showing calcium currents evoked by a test pulse from –80 mV to 0mV in cells equilibrated for 10 minutes with control or PTB-containing internal solutions. Traces marked as “a” were measured prior to transmitter application; traces “b” were recorded in the presence of 100 M GABA+ bicuculline; traces marked as “c” were obtained after 45 seconds under the constant presence of transmitter.

Figure 3. a. Immunoblotting of the membrane fraction from a DRG neuron cell lysate using antibodies against the 1B of the calcium channel. The band of the expected size is at about 240 kDa and is marked with an arrow. b. Immunoblotting with anti-1B calcium channel antibody raised against rat amino acid sequence 851-867 detects of a fusion protein containing the chick sequence for the same region. A GST-fusion protein containing the chick sequence for aa 721-963 loop II-III from embryonic chick sensory neurons was recognized by the anti-alpha 1B antibody raised against rat aa 851-867 (- lane). Preincubation of the antibody (1:1, 16 hours at 4 C) with a peptide encoding this sequence blocked the reactivity of the antibody with the fusion protein (+ lane). c. Immunoblot of immunoprecipitates using a second antibody raised against aa 1382 to 1400 of the rat 

1 subunit from skeletal muscle. This region is conserved across all the 1 subunits of high-voltage activated calcium channels.

Table 1. Effect of antibodies raised against RGS proteins on the rate of desensitization of GABA-mediated steady-state inhibition

Antibody (200 ng/ml) / # of cells / t 1/2 (s)
control / 10 / 42 ± 8
anti-RGS12 / 7 / 605 ± 14
anti-RGS4 / 4 / 43 ± 7
anti-GAIP / 5 / 41 ± 6
anti-RGS10 / 4 / 43 ± 8

Table 2. Effect on the rate of desensitization of fusion proteins containing various domains of RGS12. This table summarizes the data for all the proteins tested. Species abbreviations: h, human; m, mouse; r, rat. Amino acid numbering corresponds to SwissProt accession numbers O08774 (rat RGS12), O14924 (human RGS12).

Fusion protein / # of cells / t 1/2 (s)
Control / 15 / 42.5 + 7
hRGS12PDZ domain (aa 1-110) / 10 / 45.2+ 4
rRGS12PDZ domain (aa 1-99) / 12 / 43.7 + 3
hRGS12PTBdomain (aa220-366) / 9 / 592 + 8
rRGS12PTB domain (aa193-394) / 8 / 586 + 5
hRGS12PTB and PDZ domain (aa 1-440) / 5 / 597 + 4

1