Putrescine uptake by the cellular slime mould dictyostelium discoideum

1. Rapid labelling occurs when myxamoebae of Dictyostelium discoideum strain AX2 are incubated with [1,4-14C]putrescine. Labelling is energy-dependent. 2. The label enters a pool from which rapid exchange with extracellular putrescine does not occur, and labelling is believed to represent uptake into the cells. 3. The concentration-dependence of putrescine uptake indicates that a number of systems are involved, at least one of which is saturable, with a Km of 9.1 micro M-putrescine. At high putrescine concentrations the overall uptake process is non-saturable. 4. Significant metabolism of putrescine and loss of intracellular putrescine to the medium only occurred when cells were incubated with millimolar concentrations of extracellular putrescine. 5. Putrescine uptake was inhibited by diamines, polyamines, bivalent metal ions and omega-aminocarboxylic acids. 6. The ability to take up putrescine at low concentrations decreased during starvation of myxamoebae. 7. The results are interpreted in terms of a model for putrescine uptake involving adsorptive pinocytosis at low concentrations and fluid-phase pinocytosis at high concentrations.