[3H]dofetilide binding: biological models that manifest solely the high or the low affinity binding site

Dofetilide is a Class III antiarrhythmic agent known to selectively block the rapid component of the delayed rectifier K+ current (IKr). [3H]Dofetilide binds to a low and a high affinity sites on guinea-pig myocytes. The purposes of this study were: (1) to find biological models which express solely the high or the low [3H]dofetilide binding sites; (2) to characterize the single binding site models; and (3) to establish which of the high or the low affinity binding sites is associated with IKr. We compared and characterized the [3H]dofetilide binding on guinea-pig myocytes, neonatal mouse ventricular homogenate and untransfected CHO cells. These tissue preparations were selected since the neonatal mouse tissue expresses IKr while this current is absent from CHO cells. We compared the IC50 concentrations of dofetilide and two other known IKr blockers E-4031 and sotalol, on [3H]dofetilide binding to these three preparations. Using steady-state and kinetic binding techniques, we characterized the interaction of E-4031 and sotalol with the high and the low [3H]dofetilide binding sites. We found that neonatal mouse ventricle manifest solely the high affinity site (Kd 20 +/- 4 nmol/l, Bmax 18 +/- 4 fmol/mg) while CHO cells manifest solely the low affinity binding site (Kd 1.6 +/- 0.1 mumol/l, Bmax 5.8 +/- 0.8 pmol/mg). We demonstrated that the high and low affinity binding sites present on guinea-pig myocytes show characteristics similar to the single high affinity site expressed on neonatal mouse homogenate and to the single low affinity site expressed on CHO cells, respectively. Class III antiarrhythmic drugs inhibited binding to the high affinity site at concentrations similar to those required to inhibit 50% of IKr current in electrophysiologic studies. In contrast, dofetilide and E-4031 inhibited [3H]dofetilide binding to the low affinity site only at supra-pharmacologic concentrations. We next demonstrated that Class III drugs interact in a competitive manner with the high affinity site on neonatal mouse tissue while they interact with a site allosterically coupled to the low binding site on CHO cells. These data suggest that dofetilide interacts with the high and low affinity sites in a fundamentally different manner. We defined biological models which express solely the high or low [3H]dofetilide binding sites. Only the high affinity site is related to IKr.