Insulin complex binding to human peripheral and mitogen-stimulated lymphocytes

Surface labeling and internalization of insulin was demonstrated ultrastructurally with human peripheral lymphocytes and with "activated"/transformed lymphocytes from mitogen-treated cultures using the colloidal gold-labeled insulin-bovine serum albumin (GIA) procedure. The majority of peripheral lymphocytes bound only limited amounts of the insulin complex, while approximately 15% of the lymphocyte population bound modest to comparatively large quantities of the labeled hormone. Quantitative labeling data indicated a skewed GIA labeling continuum for peripheral lymphocytes rather than separate, distinct populations. Sequential labeling studies with the GIA complex followed by either the ferritin-conjugated goat anti-human immunoglobulin or the E-rosette techniques indicated that insulin labeling was neither T nor B cell specific, since extremes of GIA labeling were found in both populations. Many, but not all, circulating lymphocytes with elevated insulin binding had morphological features suggestive of "active" cells, viz., larger cell, nuclear, nucleolar, and Golgi sizes, dispersed chromatin, and greater numbers of polysomes than lymphocytes having minimal GIA labeling. Both phytohemagglutinin (PHA), a T-cell mitogen, and pokeweed mitogen (PWM), a B/T cell mitogen, induced an increase in mean GIA labeling of cultured lymphoid cells as compared to non-mitogen-treated controls. The majority of mitogen-transformed "blast-like" cells had more extensive insulin labeling than nontransformed small (medium)-size lymphocytes, although an overlap in labeling densities was noted in these two groups. PHA induced a slight increase in mean surface GIA labeling of the nontransformed lymphocyte population at 48 and 72 hr of culture as compared to similar cells in non-mitogen-treated controls and PWM cultures. We interpret these findings as indicating the emergence of increased numbers of insulin binding sites on lymphocytes, both those in the circulation and in mitogen-treated cultures, during the early response (activation) to functional and/or metabolic modulations of the cell; this surface change does not appear to be directly related to blastogenic transformation.