Protein phosphotyrosine phosphatase inhibitors suppress regulatory volume decrease and the volume-sensitive Cl- conductance in mouse fibroblasts

Abstract

The effects of the protein tyrosine phosphatase (PTP) inhibitors, pervanadate, monoperoxo(picolinato)- oxo-vanadate(V) [mpV(pic)] and dephostatin, on regulatory volume decrease (RVD) and the volume-sensitive Cl- current in mouse L-fibroblasts were studied with the aid of video microscopy and the whole-cell patch-clamp technique. The RVD induced by the hyposmotic shift from 300 to 150 mosmol/l, was strongly suppressed in cells that had been pre-incubated in pervanadate (25 microM) or in mpV(pic) (10 microM), or subjected to extracellular application of dephostatin (20 microM). The acceleration in RVD caused by gramicidin (0.5 microM) was also slowed down by pervanadate pre-treatment, suggesting that the PTP inhibitors affected the volume-sensitive Cl- conductance. Inhibition of the volume-sensitive Cl- current by pervanadate (25 microM) pre-treatment and by acutely applied dephostatin (20 microM) was confirmed in the whole-cell experiments (by @70% and by @50%, respectively). Both pervanadate and dephostatin inhibited the outward and inward Cl- currents equally, which suggests that only the number of open channels was affected. The amplitude of the Cl- current decreased slowly during application of dephostatin and did not recover after its termination. We conclude that in mouse L-fibroblasts, similar to bovine chromaffin cells, inhibition of PTPs results in the suppression of both RVD and the volume-sensitive Cl- current.