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Capping of concanavalin a receptors and their association with microfilaments in monolayer grown human fibroblastoid cells

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Summary

The distribution of ConA binding sites on the surface of normal human fibroblastoid cells grown in monolayer culture was carefully examined. Low concentrations of ConA (between 0.5–5.0 μg/ml) were found to induce the ConA receptors to form a single, large cap structure. High concentrations of ConA (between 50–100 μg/ml) inhibit cap formation at temperatures above 20° C. Pretreatment of the cells in the cold or with colchicine allows cap formation to occur with high concentrations of ConA. The ConA caps appear to be preferentially localized near the nucleus. Using a double immunofluorescence technique, we have observed actin and myosin molecules concentrated underneath the surface receptor cap in the perinuclear region of the cells. These findings suggest that the binding of ConA to fibroblastoid cells may trigger the transmembrane association of cytoplasmic microfilaments with surface membrane receptors as previously proposed for lymphocytes and other round cells grown in suspension culture.

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Abbreviations

IgG:

immunoglobulin

Fl:

fluorescein

Rh:

rhodamine

PBS:

0.1 M phosphate buffer (pH:7.4) plus 0.15 M NaCl

ConA:

Concanavalin A

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This work was supported by U.S. Public Health Service Grants AI 15258-01 and CA 22453

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Bourguignon, L.Y.W., Rozek, R.J. Capping of concanavalin a receptors and their association with microfilaments in monolayer grown human fibroblastoid cells. Cell Tissue Res. 205, 77–84 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00234444

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