In living cells, P2Y 1 receptor dimerization was quantitated by an improved version of fluorescence resonance energy transfer donor photobleaching analysis. 44% of the P2Y 1 receptors expressed in HEK293 cell membranes exist as dimers in the resting state, inducible by agonist exposure to give 85-100% dimerization. Monomer and constitutive dimers are fully active. Agonist-induced dimerization follows desensitization and is fully reversible upon withdrawal of agonist. Receptor dimers are required for internalization at 37°C but are not sufficient; at 20°C dimerization also occurs, but endocytosis is abolished. Removal of the C-terminal 19 amino acids abolished both dimerization and internalization, whereas full activation by agonists was retained up to a loss of 39 amino acids, confirming active monomers. This receptor is known to bind through its last four amino acids (DTSL) to a scaffolding protein, Na/H exchanger regulatory factor-2, which was endogenous here, and DTSL removal blocked constitutive dimerization specifically. Distinction should therefore be made between the following: 1) constitutive dimers tethered to a scaffolding protein, together with effector proteins, within a signaling micro-domain, and 2) free dimers in the cell membrane, which here are inducible by agonist exposure. For the class A G-protein-coupled receptors, we suggest that the percentages of free monomers, and in many cases of induced free dimers, commonly become artifactually increased; this would arise from an excess there of the receptor over its specific scaffold and from a lack of the native targeting of the receptor to that site.
Many G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs)3 have now been reported to form homo-or heterodimers. In general, the clearest information has come from heterodimers, whose presence may be shown by an expanded phenotype (see Ref. 1 and references therein). More knowledge of homodimers is also needed. For example, does homodimerization compete with heterodimer formation or even usually predominate? The extent of homodimerization of a given GPCR, particularly in the major (rhodopsin-like) class A, and whether functioning GPCR monomers generally co-exist with dimers in that class are still unresolved issues (see Refs. 2-5). Furthermore, the role of a homodimer in the life cycle of the receptor in the cell is as yet unclear, with no consensus on whether such dimers are constitutive nor whether they depend upon agonist activation (5, 6 -9). For these questions, we first need to determine the actual percentage of the membrane population of a receptor under study that is homodimeric in each relevant state, a goal as yet unattained. We have investigated these issues in the case of homodimers of the P2Y receptors for nucleotides.We report here on the P2Y 1 receptor (P2Y 1 R) (10), activated by extracellular ATP, and its product ADP, which are released ubiquitously in animal tissues. P2Y 1 R is expressed very widely therein (11,12). In the nervous system, for example, it contributes to both G q -based signaling (13) an...