The seventh transmembrane domain of gastrin/CCK receptors contributes to non-peptide antagonist binding

The related rat cholecystokinin (CCK)-A and gastrin/CCK-B receptors can be selectively blocked by the antagonists L364718 and L365260, respectively. In order to determine receptor domains which are important in conferring specificity for L365260 and L364718 we constructed by overlap-PCR a rat gastrin/CCK-B receptor chimaera which contained the seventh transmembrane domain of the rat CCK-A receptor. Receptor binding assays on transiently transfected COS cells demonstrated a selective reduction in the affinity of the chimaeric receptor for L364718, so that the L365260 and L364718 affinities were of a similar order. Since the chimaera differs from the wild-type gastrin/CCK-B receptor by only six amino acids we conclude that one or more of these six amino acids contributes to L364718 binding and that the affinity determinants of L365260 and L364718 must, at least in part, be different. Furthermore, the affinity of the chimaera for gastrin is essentially the same as the gastrin/CCK-B receptor, indicating that the six different amino acids probably do not contribute to peptide agonist binding.