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The technique of radiation inactivation has been used on highly purified human placental insulin receptor in order to determine the functional molecular size responsible for the insulin binding and to evaluate the affinity regulator hypothesis, which has been proposed to explain the increase in specific insulin binding to rat liver membranes observed at low radiation does. Three different types of inactivation curves were observed: (1) biphasic with an enhanced binding activity after exposure to low radiation doses, (2) nonlinear with no change in binding activity after exposure to low radiation doses, and (3) linear with a loss in the binding activity with increasing radiation exposures. A monomer-dimer model was the simplest model that best described the three types of radiation inactivation curves observed. The model predicts that an increase in insulin binding activity would result after exposure to low radiation doses when the initial dimer/monomer ratio is equal to or greater than 1 and a monomer is more active than a dimer. The monomer size of the binding activity was estimated to be 227,000 daltons by this model. To substantiate this model, the purified receptor was fractionated by Sepharose CL-6B chromatography. The insulin binding profile of this column indicated twomore » peaks. These studies suggest that the affinity regulator does not exist as a separate structural protein but is due to the dimeric form of the receptor. The dimeric form (..cap alpha../sub 2/..beta../sub 2/) possesses a much lower specific activity for insulin binding than does the monomeric ..cap alpha beta.. form (under the standard conditions), but the dimeric structure is necessary to observe the negative cooperative binding isotherm.« less

The technique of radiation inactivation has been used on a highly purified insulin receptor in order to determine the functional molecular size responsible for tyrosine-specific protein kinase activity. When both insulin binding and kinase activities were analyzed with the same receptor preparations, the functional size for kinase activity was found to be larger than that for insulin binding activity. The radiation inactivation curve for kinase activity was multiphasic. This indicates that at least two components contribute to total kinase activity. The average minimal functional size for the kinase was 370,000 +/- 60,000 daltons (n = 7) which corresponds to the alpha 2 beta 2 form of the insulin receptor. The average functional size for larger forms was estimated to be approximately 4 X 10(6) daltons. (To minimize the complexity of the model used in this analysis, we have analyzed the radiation inactivation curves of the insulin receptor kinase activity with a two-component model. However, we believe that the larger component, greater than 1 X 10(6) daltons, is probably not a single molecular weight species but rather represents a continuum of sizes or aggregates of the alpha 2 beta 2 form of the receptor.) These larger forms contributed 93% of the total activity. Mild reduction of the insulin receptor preparation with dithiothreitol (DTT) activated the total kinase activity by 3.5-fold. Under this condition, the minimal functional kinase size was 380,000 +/- 30,000 daltons (n = 6) while the average functional size for the larger forms was approximately 3 X 10(6) daltons.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

The insulin receptor is a membrane glycoprotein with ~Mr=300,000, which is thought to be responsible for mediating all insulin-dependent biological actions (1). The basic structural unit of the insulin receptor is proposed to be a disulfide-linked complex composed of two 125,000 dalton (a) subunits and two 90,000 dalton (3) subunits in β-α-α-β form (2,3). Affinity-labeling experiments and cloning studies have suggested that the a subunit has insulin binding sites whereas the α subunit carries tyrosine- specific protein kinase activity (4–7).

Summary Fodrin (nonerythroid spectrin) from porcine brain was found to be phosphorylated on tyrosine residues by the purified insulin receptor kinase. The phosphorylation occurred in an insulin-sensitive manner with a physiologically relevant Km. The β (235 K) subunit of fodrin, but not the α (240 K) subunit, was phosphorylated by the kinase. Neither the α (240 K) subunit nor the β (220 K) subunit of erythrocyte spectrin was phosphorylated under the same conditions. Fodrin phosphorylation by the purified insulin receptor kinase was markedly inhibited by F-actin. These data raise the possibility that tyrosine phosphorylation of fodrin plays some roles in the regulation of plasma membrane-microfilament interaction.

The anti-B specific lectin produced by Streptomyces sp. was shown to have two carbohydrate-binding sites with binding constants of 8.3 . 10(3) M-1 (15 degrees C) and 2.2 . 10(3) M-1 (4 degrees C) for L-rhamnose and D-galactose, respectively, calculated according to Scatchard plots. The binding of specific sugars to the lectin not only induced a peculiar ultraviolet difference spectrum showing a blue shift of tryptophan absorption, but also caused crystallization of the lectin at a concentration of 1 mg per ml or more. The solvent-perturbation studies on the lectin showed that the number of solvent-exposed tryptophan (or average extent of exposure) was two in the absence of L-rhamnose, and three in the presence of the sugar. This suggests that one tryptophan residue appears outside as the result of sugar-binding to the lectin, which is reflected by the difference spectra. Oxidation of two tryptophan residues with N-bromosuccinimide led to complete loss of carbohydrate-binding activity of the lectin, indicating that these residues are important for retaining the activity.

Background: Evidence has been accumulating that in many tumors, insulin-like growth factors (ICFs) promote cancer cell growth in an autocrine/paracrine manner via the IGF-1 receptor. In an effort to understand the role of ICFs in prostate cancer cell growth, we characterized the IGF system components produced by human prostatic cancer cell-lines, LNCaP, DU145, and PC-3, grown in serum-free medium. Methods: IGFs, their receptors, and IGF binding proteins (IGFBPs) produced by the three human prostate cell lines were characterized by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), radioimmunoassay (RIA), Western ligand blot, Western immunoblot, and Northern blot analyses. Results: mRNA for IGF-II and receptors for IGF-I and IGF-II were detected in all three cell-lines by RT-PCR. In contrast to the published study, only LNCaP cells expressed a trace amount of IGF-I mRNA. RIA on conditioned media collected from these cells revealed that all three cell-lines produced measurable IGF-II but not IGF-I. Western ligand blot, Western immunoblot, and Northern blot analyses revealed that LNCaP, DU145, and PC-3 cells expressed IGFBP-2, IGFBP-2/-3/-4/-6, and IGFBP-2/-3/-4/-5/-6, respectively. IGF-II stimulated [3H]thymidine incorporation into DNA in DU145 and PC-3 cells significantly although the effect was small. DNA synthesis in PC-3 cells but not in LNCaP and DU145 cells was significantly inhibited by the IGF-I receptor-specific monoclonal antibody. Conclusion: These results suggest potentially important roles of IGFs and IGFBPs in prostate cancer cell growth, and that in particular, IGF-II may play a critical role in prostate cancer cell growth.

We have developed a radioimmunoassay for human insulin receptor. Serum from a patient with Type B severe insulin resistance was used as anti-insulin receptor antiserum. Pure human placental insulin receptor was used as reference preparation and 125I labeled pure insulin receptor as trace. The radioimmunoassay was sensitive (limit of detection less than 17 fmol), reproducible (inter and intra-assay coefficients of variation 12.5% and 1.6% respectively) and specific (no crossreactivity with pure placental IGF-1 receptor, insulin and glucagon). The anti-insulin receptor antibody was, however, able to differentiate between insulin receptor from human placenta and from rat liver. To determine the number of insulin binding sites per receptor, we measured insulin binding (by insulin binding assay) and insulin receptor mass (by radioimmunoassay) in solubilized aliquots from 5 human placentas. The molar ratio of insulin binding to receptor mass was 0.86 +/- 0.12 when binding was determined with monoiodinated 125I-Tyr A 14-insulin. It was 1.94 +/- 0.27 when randomly iodinated 125I-insulin was used. In conclusion, using a sensitive, reproducible and specific radioimmunoassay, we have measured insulin receptor mass independent of insulin binding. Our data are most compatible with binding of one insulin molecule per human placental insulin receptor.

Insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-I receptor purified from human placental membranes as previously described (LeBon, T. R., Jacobs, S., Cuatrecasas, P., Kathuria, S., and Fujita-Yamaguchi, Y. (1986) J. Biol. Chem. 261, 7685-7689) was characterized. The IGF-I receptor was similar to the insulin receptor with respect to subunit structure (beta-alpha-alpha-beta), apparent sizes of deglycosylated alpha (Mr = approximately 88,000) and beta (Mr = approximately 67,000) subunits, and amino acid composition of the subunits. Monoclonal antibody specific to each receptor recognized its own receptor whereas polyclonal anti-human insulin receptor antibody cross-reacted with the IGF-I receptor, indicating that the receptors share one or more antigenic sites. Further characterization of the purified IGF-I receptor tyrosine-protein kinase activity indicated that by analogy with the insulin receptor the monomeric alpha beta form of the IGF-I receptor appears to have higher kinase activity than the intact receptor in the alpha 2 beta 2 form. The most significant difference between the two receptors was found in the N-terminal amino acid sequences of their alpha subunits, which apparently show 60% identity. The IGF-I receptor alpha subunit lacks residues corresponding to the N-terminal 4 amino acids of the insulin receptor alpha subunit. These results provide the first direct proof that the IGF-I receptor is a molecule distinct from the insulin receptor despite numerous similarities.