title: Does thyrotropin cleave its cognate receptor?
abstract: A recent report of major pathophysiological significance, and opposed to present concepts, is that TSH (but not MS-1, a hamster monoclonal thyroid-stimulating antibody), cleaves the single-chain TSH receptor (TSHR) on the cell surface into its two-subunit form. We reassessed the issue using two approaches. First we wished to confirm the flow-cytometric assay previously used to quantitate TSHR cleavage. We used CHO cell lines expressing large (TSHR-10,000 cells) or conventional (TSHR-0 cells) numbers of TSHR. Cells were preincubated (16 h) in either control medium or medium supplemented with TSH (5 x 10(-8) m) or MS-1 (10 microg/ml). After stringent washing to maximize removal of residual ligand, we performed flow cytometry with two antibodies, one recognizing only the single-chain TSHR, the other recognizing all (cleaved and uncleaved) TSHRs. TSH pretreatment did not appear to increase TSHR cleavage. Instead we observed ligand occupancy of the TSHR (with MS-1) or fewer receptors on the cell surface (down-regulation), particularly with the TSHR-0 cells. Second, we covalently cross-linked [125I]TSH to monolayers of these cells, an unequivocal method to determine directly the proportion of single-chain and two-subunit TSHR forms. Pretreatment of TSHR-10,000 and TSHR-0 cells with TSH had no effect on the degree of TSHR cleavage. MS-1 slightly reduced spontaneous cleavage. In conclusion, in contrast to a recent report, we show that TSH does not alter the subunit structure of its cognate receptor, and we provide insight into the difficulties associated with the flow-cytometric assay for TSHR cleavage.
authors.affiliation: Autoimmune Disease Unit, Cedars-Sinai Research Institute and School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90048, USA.
authors.forename: Gregorio D
authors.initials: GD
authors.lastname: Chazenbalk
authors.forename: Chun-Rong
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: Sandra M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: McLachlan
authors.forename: Basil
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rapoport
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000918:Antibody Specificity; D016466:CHO Cells; D006224:Cricetinae; D015536:Down-Regulation; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D006111:Graves Disease / Q000378:metabolism; D006801:Humans; D007457:Iodine Radioisotopes; D008024:Ligands; D011989:Receptors, Thyrotropin / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism*; D013972:Thyrotropin / Q000378:metabolism* / Q000494:pharmacology
chemical_list: D007457:Iodine Radioisotopes; D008024:Ligands; D011989:Receptors, Thyrotropin; D013972:Thyrotropin