Forskolin is a potent inhibitor of mammalian passive glucose transporters. Here we show that forskolin is a remarkably specific inhibitor of energized D-galactose transport by the GalP sugar-H+ symport protein of Escherichia coli. Surprisingly, it does not inhibit transport of L-arabinose or D-xylose by the related E. coli AraE and XylE transporters, even though the amino acid sequences of their proteins are 30-64% identical to GalP and to the mammalian GLUT family. However, unlike GLUT1, photoactivation of the [3H]forskolin-GalP complex fails to incorporate radioactivity covalently into the protein, in contrast to the effective incorporation of radioactivity from [3H]cytochalasin B into both proteins. However, 3-[125I]iodo-4-azidophenethylamido-7-O-succinyldesacetylforskol in ([125I]APS-forskolin), which labels GLUT1, is a potent labeling reagent for GalP and, to a lesser extent, for AraE. The appropriate sugar substrates of each transporter protect it against the [125I]APS-forskolin. Equilibrium binding studies using membranes from an E. coli strain that overexpresses GalP reveal a single set of high affinity binding sites for [3H]forskolin with a Kd of 1.3-1.4 microM, probably forming a 1:1 complex, compared with a value of 7.5 microM for GLUT1. Sugar substrates of GalP and cytochalasin B displace forskolin from the protein. The nonhomologous sugar-H+ symporters for L-rhamnose (RhaT), L-fucose (FucP) and lactose (LacY) in E. coli are insensitive to forskolin. Forskolin and [125I]APS-forskolin, therefore, constitute novel probes for exploring the structure-activity relationship of the bacterial GalP protein. GalP will provide an excellent model for the human glucose transporters and for elucidating the molecular basis of subtle differences in substrate and inhibitor recognition by individual members of this widespread family of transport proteins.