A substantial proportion of cardiac Gs is not associated with the plasma membrane

The precise interactions between the subunits of Gs (alpha s, beta, gamma) and the plasma membrane remain to be established. If alpha s is associated loosely with the inner membrane, is labile during activation, or is always present to some extent in the cytoplasm, then it should fractionate to the supernatant of a high-speed centrifugation. We identified abundant alpha s (52-66% of total cellular) in the supernatant fraction of right atrial and left ventricular membrane preparations of porcine heart as shown by two distinct measures of alpha s (immunoblotting and ADP ribosylation by cholera toxin). However, functional assays utilizing reconstitution of cardiac alpha s with cyc- S49 membranes revealed that the supernatant fraction contained approximately 16% of total cellular alpha s activity. The alpha s present in the supernatant fraction did not result from contamination by sarcolemmal membrane fragments. We conclude that traditional methods for quantifying alpha s which utilize only detergent extracts from high-speed pellets do not account for a sizable proportion of total cellular alpha s, but that the majority of this population of cardiac alpha s may not be functional, at least with respect to adenylyl cyclase activation.