The cAMP dependent-protein kinase (PKA) signaling pathway plays a key role in the sympathetic regulation of muscle contraction in adult cardiac myocytes. This pathway may be regulated via compartmentalization of its components, whereby A-kinase anchoring proteins (AKAPs) tether PKA to specific subcellular areas to give each receptor binding event specificity. The purpose of this study is to investigate the binding kinetics between Ht31, a peptide containing the PKA binding portion of an AKAP from human thyroid, and the regulatory subunit of PKA (R).

Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) was used to monitor binding events between the type II regulatory subunit of PKA (RE) and Ht31 or Ht31P, a mutated form of Ht31 which does not bind RII. Each protein was fused to a derivative of the green fluorescent protein (GFP) so that the excitation-emission spectra of the two fluorescent proteins overlap.