Identification of CCK-B/gastrin receptor splice variants in human peripheral blood mononuclear cells

There is increasing evidence for a direct interaction of the enteric nervous and immune system. Receptors for neuropeptides such as VIP, somatostatin, and substance P have been characterised in human immuno-haematopoietic cells but little is known about the functional significance and expression of receptors for cholecystokinin (CCK) on cells of the immune system. There are only few studies that describe the expression of CCK receptors on human leukaemia-derived cell lines but the receptor structure and function in normal leukocytes have not been clearly established. We therefore sought to determine CCK receptor expression, structure, and function in nontransformed human peripheral blood mononuclear cells.Full-length cDNA clones encoding the human CCK-A and CCK-B/gastrin receptor are expressed in peripheral blood mononuclear cells from healthy volunteers without haematopoietic malignancy. In addition to wild-type CCK-B/gastrin receptor cDNAs, we isolated a splice variant with an in frame insertion of 69 amino acids within its putative third intracellular receptor loop. Dideoxy sequence analysis revealed that the cDNA of this splice variant comprises exons 1-4 but retains intron 4 (207 bp) in the absence of mutations within the splice donor sites. Transient expression of this splice variant in COS-7 cells reveals wild-type affinity for CCK-8, Gastrin-17, and antagonist L-365,260. Affinity for glycine-extended gastrin-17 was not increased when compared to the wild-type CCK-B/gastrin receptor. In vitro, gastrin decreased 3H-thymidine labelling in phytohaemagglutinin-pretreated mononuclear cells at a half-maximally effective concentration of 1.5 nM. We also isolated a cDNA encoding another splice variant of the CCK-B/gastrin receptor with a 158 bp deletion of the entire exon 4 sequence. We conclude that wild-type transcripts of both CCK receptor subtypes and splice variants of the CCK-B/gastrin receptor are expressed in nontransformed human mononuclear cells and that gastrin exhibits antiproliferative effects.