One of the major causes of multidrug resistance in human cancers is expression of the P-glycoprotein multidrug transporter, which acts as an efflux pump for a diverse range of natural products, chemotherapeutic drugs, and hydrophobic peptides. In the present study, fluorescence techniques were used to probe the nucleotide binding domains (NBD) of P-glycoprotein. The transporter was labeled at two conserved cysteine residues, one within each NBD, using the thiol-reactive fluor 2-(4'-maleimidylanilino)-naphthalene-6-sulfonic acid (MIANS), and collisional quenching was used to assess solvent accessibility of the bound probe. Acrylamide was a poor quencher, which suggests that MIANS is buried in a relatively inaccessible region of the protein. Iodide ion was a highly effective quencher, whereas Cs+ was not, demonstrating the presence of a positive charge in the region close to the ATP binding site. The fluorescent nucleotide derivative 2'(3')-O-(2,4,6-trinitrophenyl)-ATP (TNP-ATP) was hydrolysed slowly by P-glycoprotein, with a V(max) approximately 20-fold lower than that for unmodified ATP, and a K(M) of 81 microM. TNP-ATP and TNP-ADP inhibited P-glycoprotein ATPase activity, indicating that they interact with the NBD, whereas TNP-AMP was a very poor inhibitor. When TNP-nucleotides bound to P-glycoprotein, their fluorescence intensity was enhanced in a concentration-dependent manner. Both TNP-ATP and TNP-ADP bound to P-glycoprotein with substantially higher affinity than ATP, with K(d) values of 43 and 36 microM, respectively. Addition of ATP led to only partial displacement of TNP-ATP. Resonance energy transfer was observed between cysteine-bound MIANS and TNP-ATP/ADP, which indicated that the two fluorescent groups are located close to each other within the catalytic site of P-glycoprotein.