Calcium transport by the Ca2(+)-pumping ATPase in rat duodenal basolateral-enriched membrane vesicles was stimulated by synthetic calbindin-D9k in a similar fashion to the purified natural protein. In order to elucidate the mechanism of this effect, various synthetic mutant proteins were studied. Proteins with modifications to the N-terminal Ca2(+)-binding domain, or to a cluster of negatively-charged surface residues had altered Ca2(+)-binding but these changes did not affect the stimulation of vesicular Ca2+ transport. It appears that these domains are not essential for the interaction between calbindin-D9k and the intestinal basolateral Ca2(+)-pump.