Mutation of Residue 33 of Human Equilibrative Nucleoside Transporters 1 and 2 Alters Sensitivity to Inhibition of Transport by Dilazep and Dipyridamole*

Human equilibrative nucleoside transporters (hENT) 1 and 2 differ in that hENT1 is inhibited by nanomolar concentrations of dipyridamole and dilazep, whereas hENT2 is 2 and 3 orders of magnitude less sensitive, respectively. When a yeast expression plasmid containing the hENT1 cDNA was randomly mutated and screened by phenotypic complementation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae to identify mutants with reduced sensitivity to dilazep, clones with a point mutation that converted Met33to Ile (hENT1-M33I) were obtained. Characterization of the mutant protein in S. cerevisiae and Xenopus laevisoocytes revealed that the mutant had less than one-tenth the sensitivity to dilazep and dipyridamole than wild type hENT1, with no change in nitrobenzylmercaptopurine ribonucleoside (NBMPR) sensitivity or apparent uridine affinity. To determine whether the reciprocal mutation in hENT2 (Ile33 to Met) also altered sensitivity to dilazep and dipyridamole, hENT2-I33M was created by site-directed mutagenesis. Although the resulting mutant (hENT2-I33M) displayed >10-fold higher dilazep and dipyridamole sensitivity and >8-fold higher uridine affinity compared with wild type hENT2, it retained insensitivity to NBMPR. These data established that mutation of residue 33 (Met versus Ile) of hENT1 and hENT2 altered the dilazep and dipyridamole sensitivities in both proteins, suggesting that a common region of inhibitor interaction has been identified.