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The Effect of Solubilization on the Properties of the Insulin Receptor of Human Placental Membranes^*

LEN C. HARRISON, TIMOTHY BILLINGTON, IAIN J. EAST, ROBYN J. NICHOLS and STELLA CLARK

University of Melbourne Department of Medicine and the Department of Endocrinology, Royal Melbourne Hospital 3050, Victoria, Australia

Abstract

The insulin receptor from human placental membranes has been solubilized in Triton X-100 and its properties have been examined in detail. Binding of [¹²⁵I]iodoinsulin to the soluble receptor is markedly inhibited by increasing concentrations of Triton X-100, due to a fall in receptor affinity. In 0.02–0.10% Triton X-100, the soluble receptor exhibits all the essential characteristics of the intact or particulate receptor. These include strict specificity for insulin and its analogues, increase in steady state binding with decrease in temperature, a pH optimum at 7.8–8.0, and negatively cooperative site-site interactions.

The initial association rate of [¹²⁵I]iodoinsulin and the soluble receptor is a direct function of temperature, but the level of steady-state binding is lower at higher temperatures due to a marked increase in dissociation rate. Scatchard binding plots are curvilinear and show a large increase in affinity at 4 C with no change in total binding capacity (Ro); increased binding to the particulate placental membrane at 4 C is due chiefly to an increase in Ro. Negative cooperatively in the soluble receptor has been confirmed by kinetic experiments; thus, the dissociation of [¹²⁵I]iodoinsulin from the receptor in the presence of "infinite" dilution is accelerated in the presence of 10^-8 M unlabeled insulin. The apparent molecular weight of the placental receptor, determined by gel filtration on 6% agarose, is approximately 300,000.

These studies show that the basic properties of the insulin receptor do not depend on it being an integral component of the cell membrane. (Endocrinology 102: 1485, 1978)

Footnotes

^* This work was presented in part at the third annual meeting of the Australian Diabetes Association in Melbourne, November 1976. It was supported by grants from the University of Melbourne and the Victor Hurley Foundation of the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

Present address: Diabetes Branch, NIAMDD, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland 20014. To whom requests for reprints should be addressed.

Received July 24, 1977.

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