Calmodulin is a small (~17 kD), ubiquitous, highly conserved EF-hand containing Ca
2+ binding protein. Roughly 50% of CaM localizes to cellular membranes, while the other half resides in the cytosol and nucleus [
17]. CaM binds four Ca
2+ ions cooperatively, and undergoes a Ca
2+-dependent conformation change that increases its affinity for target proteins [
17]. CaM binds directly to RyR1 and is well documented to regulate activity of isolated RyR1 channels
in vitro. EM and FRET based studies show CaM binds to the large cytoplasmic face of RyR1 ([
18,
19], and single channel measurements demonstrated that at low [Ca
2+] (100nM) Ca
2+ free (ie, apo-CaM) increases the activity of RyR1, while at higher Ca
2+ concentrations (≥1µM) Ca-CaM inhibits channel activity several fold [
20]. Further studies complemented these findings, leading to the classification of apo-CaM as a weak agonist of RyR1 and Ca-CaM as a stronger inhibitor of the channel [
21,
22]. CaM binds to one site per RyR1 subunit (4 per tetramer), and protects RyR1 from proteolytic cleavage at amino acid residues 3630 and 3637. Combined with sequence analysis for CaM binding motifs, the CaM binding domain (CaM BD) has been identified as residues 3614–3643 of rabbit RyR1 [
23] on the cytoplasmic face of each RyR1 subunit [
24]. Rabbit RyR1 3614–3643 corresponds to mouse RyR1 3615–3644; in the rabbit sequence residue numbers are shifted one residue lower for RyR1 and one residue higher for RyR2 compared to the mouse sequence, which should be kept in mind when comparing reports in the literature.
More recently, CaM has been shown to interact with RyR1 in a more complex manner. The C-terminal lobe of CaM binds to the previously classified CaM BD of RyR1, while the N-terminal lobe may interact with a second site non-contiguous with the primary sequence [
25]. The N-terminal lobe has been proposed to bind between residues 1975 and 1999 of the RyR1 monomer adjacent to the C-terminal binding site. Disulfide bonds between these sites supports proximity between the two domains, which could explain CaM binding non-contiguously to this site of intersubunit interaction [
26]. Upon binding Ca
2+, CaM has been shown to shift in its binding site [
18,
19]. Zhang et al. (2003) proposed that this shift mediates the switch between apo-CaM activating RyR1 to Ca-CaM inhibiting the channel. Furthermore, Rodney et al. (2005) proposed that apo-CaM binding the CaM BD may sensitize RyR1 to activation by disrupting intersubunit interactions, while Ca-CaM may produce an inhibitory effect by stabilizing intersubunit interactions and promoting a closed configuration of the channel.
Although CaM binding to RyR1 and modulation of RyR1 activity
in vitro has been thoroughly demonstrated [
20,
22,
27],
in situ analysis of CaM’s role in EC coupling with functionally coupled DHPR-RyR1 has been limited. O’Connell et al. (2002) showed that myotubes expressing RyR1 with mutations to the CaM BD showed minimal alterations in EC coupling [
28]. However, until recently no studies had evaluated endogenous CaM’s
in vivo role in adult skeletal muscle, leaving a void between
in vitro analysis of CaM’s effect on RyR1 and an analysis of its physiologic contribution to EC coupling.
2.1. S100A1
The S100 family of proteins are Ca
2+ binding proteins that appeared relatively late in evolution and are only expressed in vertebrates. One of the first of the now more than 20 family members characterized was S100A1, originally referred to as S100α [
29,
30]. S100A1 is a small (21kD), dimeric Ca
2+ binding protein that, like CaM, contains 4 EF-hand Ca
2+ binding domains in its dimerized form [
31,
32]. The first EF hand is a “pseudo” EF hand, as it binds Ca
2+ with lower affinity (100–500 µM) than the second, canonical EF hand, which binds Ca
2+ in the standard range (1–50 µM) [
31,
32]. This relatively low Ca
2+ affinity of S100A1 can be greatly strengthened by glutathionylation [
33] as well as the presence of a target interacting protein [
34,
35], allowing S100A1 to sense nanomolar intracellular Ca
2+ concentrations
in vivo. Ca
2+ affinity is a key determinant in the function of S100A1, since like CaM it has no intrinsic enzymatic activity, but instead interacts with target proteins though a Ca
2+-dependent mechanism to elicit biological responses [
29,
36]. Upon binding Ca
2+, two of the EF-hands undergo dramatic conformational changes, exposing a hydrophobic binding pocket that is thought to be the target protein interacting region [
32,
37].
Although S100 family members share considerable sequence homology, they are expressed in tissue specific patterns. S100A1 is the most highly expressed family member in striated muscle, and also exhibits expression in other organ systems such as the brain, kidney, and spleen [
30,
38,
39]. In striated muscle, S100A1 demonstrates highest expression in cardiac muscle, followed by slow twitch and fast twitch skeletal muscle, respectively [
40,
41]. In fast twitch skeletal muscle, estimates of S100A1 protein concentration range from 0.5 – 15 µM [
40,
42,
43]. The effective concentration of S100A1 locally available for the modulation of RyR1 is likely higher, however, as S100A1 has been shown, both at an ultrastructural level and with immunofluorescence, to localize to A band/I band junctions and SR membranes [
44–
46], where RyR1 Ca
2+ release occurs in skeletal muscle.
While a considerable body of knowledge has amassed about S100A1’s role in cardiac muscle (see below and review by [
47]), research on this protein in skeletal muscle has lagged behind. Early experiments showed that S100A1 enhanced RyR1 Ca
2+ release in SR terminal cisternae preparations [
48]. These authors presciently noted that despite belonging to the same superfamily of EF-hand Ca
2+ binding proteins, CaM and S100A1 appeared to have contrasting effects on the activation of RyR1-mediated Ca
2+ release, a notion we have explored in detail in recent years and will focus on in this review. S100A1 has also been shown to bind purified RyR1 by affinity chromatography (with mid-nanomolar affinity, similar to CaM), and to potentiate the open probability of RyR1 reconstituted in a lipid bilayer [
13]. Furthermore, exogenous S100A1 increases caffeine-evoked force transients in skinned skeletal muscle fibers [
41]. These
in vitro studies laid mechanistic groundwork for our understanding of S100A1 regulation of RyR1 Ca
2+ release; however, they did not explore physiologic voltage-gated Ca
2+ release in a functionally intact skeletal muscle system.
2.2. Calmodulin and S100A1 bind to an overlapping conserved region of the ryanodine receptor Ca2+ release channel
It is not uncommon for S100 proteins to bind similar structural motifs as CaM [
49,
50]. Sequence scanning of mouse RyR1 showed that residues 3617–3628, which begin 2 residues into the N-terminus of the CaM BD, very closely match the S100 consensus binding sequence (), closer than any other sequence in the entirety of RyR1. S100A1 and CaM were shown to bind with similar affinities to a peptide generated from this region of RyR1 [
46]. The solution structure of S100A1 bound to this peptide of RyR1 has since been solved using NMR spectroscopy [
35], and the crystal structure of CaM bound to the CaM BD is also available [
51]. Of note, the S100A1 binding domain of RyR1 (mouse residues 3617–3628) is perfectly conserved in the corresponding sequence of RyR2 (mouse residues 3582–3593; ; see below). Furthermore, there are only three residue differences between RyR1 and RyR2 over the entire CaM binding domain.
Competition assays using isolated SR vesicle preparations were used to evaluate whether CaM and S100A1 compete for binding the CaM BD of the full length RyR1. CaM-linked beads were mixed with intact SR vesicles expressing full length RyR1, allowing CaM to bind to the CaM BD of RyR1 in the SR vesicles. Addition of S100A1 displaced the RyR1-containing vesicles from the CaM beads in a dose dependent fashion [
46]. Importantly, S100A1 could displace the RyR1-containing vesicles from the CaM-linked beads at 100 nM Ca
2+, suggesting that S100A1 binds RyR1 at [Ca
2+]
i inherent to resting conditions in skeletal muscle fibers. The reverse experiment using S100A1-linked beads showed that addition of CaM also fully displaced S100A1 from RyR1 [
35]. As both CaM and S100A1 fully displace one another from the CaM BD, CaM and S100A1 likely share one major, high affinity binding site on each RyR1 monomer (or 4 per tetrameric RyR1 channel), although there are additional sites of interaction [
13,
20,
52]. In addition, the N-terminal CaM BD peptide also fully displaced the SR vesicles from S100A1-linked beads, further suggesting that S100A1 interaction with RyR1 occurs through this domain [
35]. We will thus refer to this site of presumed competitive binding of CaM or S100A1 to RyR1 as the CaM/S100A1 BD for the remainder of this review.