Determinants of the voltage dependence of G protein modulation within calcium channel beta subunits.

CaVbeta subunits of voltage-gated calcium channels contain two conserved domains, a src-homology-3 (SH3) domain and a guanylate kinase-like (GK) domain with an intervening HOOK domain. We have shown in a previous study that, although Gbetagamma-mediated inhibitory modulation of CaV2.2 channels did not require the interaction of a CaVbeta subunit with the CaValpha1 subunit, when such interaction was prevented by a mutation in the alpha1 subunit, G protein modulation could not be removed by a large depolarization and showed voltage-independent properties (Leroy et al.