Abstract. We have examined the effects of various agonists and antagonists of GTP-binding proteins on receptor-mediated endocytosis in vitro. Stage-specific assays which distinguish coated pit assembly, invagination, and coat vesicle budding have been used to demonstrate requirements for GTP-binding protein(s) in each of these events. Coated pit invagination and coated vesicle budding are both stimulated by addition of GTP and inhibited by GDP/SS. Although coated pit invagination is resistant to GTP'yS, A1F4-, and mastoparan, late events involved in coated vesicle budding are inhibited by these antagonists of G protein function. Earlier events involved in coated pit assembly are also inhibited by GTP-yS, A1F4-, and mastoparan. These results demonstrate that multiple GTP-binding proteins, including heterotfimeric G proteins, participate at discrete stages in receptor-mediated endocytosis via clathrin-coated pits.
INTRACELLULAR membrane trafficking is mediated by transport vesicles which bud from one organelle and then fuse with an appropriate target organelle. Vesicle formation occurs at specialized regions of the membrane distinguished by an underlying protein coat. There are now two recognized classes of coat structures which function in transport vesicle formation. The best studied of these are clathrincoated pits and coated vesicles (CCV) 1 which are involved in receptor-mediated endoeytosis and transport from the Golgi complex to lysosomes (reviewed by Brodsky, 1988;Pearse and Robinson, 1990). The major coat constituents of CCVs are clathrin triskelions and adaptors (reviewed by Pearse and Crowther, 1987). Clathrin triskelions are composed of three 180-kD heavy chains and three tightly associated •30-kD light chains. Adaptor complexes are heterotetramers composed of two *100-110-kD adaptin molecules and two smaller subunits of 47-50 and 17-19 kD (reviewed by Pearse and Robinson, 1990;Keen, 1990).More recently a second class of transport vesicles, referred to as "nonclathdn-coated vesicles" or "COP-coated vesicles" has been shown to mediate vesicular traffic along the exoeytic pathway (Orci et al., 1986). The coat constituents of nonclathrin-coated vesicles include polypeptides of 160 (or-cop), 110 (t-cop), 98 ('t-cop), and 68 kD (&cop), smaller subunits of 36 and 35 kD (Maholtra et al., 1989), as well as ADP-ribosylation factor (ARF), a 20-kD GTPbinding protein . Sequence analysis has demonstrated that 13-cop is distantly related to 13-adaptin (17 % homology in the NH2-terminal half of the molecule)1. Abbreviations used in this paper: BFA, brefeldin A; CCV, clathrincoated vesicle; COP..CV, nonclathrin-coated vesicle; GDP~S, guanosine-5'-o-(2-thiodiphosphate); GTP3,S, guanosine-5'-o-(3-thiotriphosphate); MESNa, mercaptoethane sulfonic acid. suggesting some functional relationship between these two coat proteins (Duden et al., 1991).Both classes of coated pits assemble from a cytosolic pool of coat proteins. Clathrin and adaptors exist as distinct soluble pools which appear to assemble sequentially to form cl...