Stabilizing effects of G protein on the active conformation of adenosine A1 receptor differ depending on G protein type

G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) trigger various cellular and physiological responses upon the ligand binding. The ligand binding induces conformational change in GPCRs which allows G protein to interact with the receptor. The interaction of G protein also affects the active conformation of GPCRs. In this study, we have investigated the effects of Gαi1, Gαo and chimeric Gαqi5 on the active conformation of the adenosine A1 receptor, as each Gα showed difference in the interaction with adenosine A1 receptor. The conformational changes in the adenosine A1 receptor were detected as the agonist-induced decreases in efficiency of Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) between fluorescent proteins (FPs) fused at the two intracellular domains of the adenosine A1 receptor. Amplitudes of the agonist-induced FRET decreases were subtle when the FP-tagged adenosine A1 receptor was expressed alone, whereas they were significantly enhanced when co-expressed with Gαi1Gβ1Gγ22 (Gi1) or Gαqi5Gβ1Gγ22 (Gqi5) but not with GαοGβ1Gγ22 (Go). The enhancement of the agonist-induced FRET decrease in the presence of Gqi5 was significantly larger than that of Gi1. Furthermore, the FRET recovery upon the agonist removal in the presence of Gqi5 was significantly slower than that of Gi1. From these results it was revealed that the agonist-bound active conformation of adenosine A1 receptor is unstable without the binding of G protein and that the stabilizing effects of G protein differ depending on the types of G protein.