[Expression of interferon alpha receptors in cell lines from human tumors. Relationship with the antiproliferative...

Alpha Interferon (IFN) membrane receptor expression was studied in four human tumor cell lines from several origins: Burkitt's lymphoma (Daudi cells), cervix adenocarcinoma (HeLa cells), larynx carcinoma (HEp-2 cells) and a grade III-IV glioblastoma (GL-5 cells). The number of receptors per cell expressed in each case did not correlate with the sensitivity of the cytostatic effect of IFN alpha-2b. However, the Scatchard analysis of the affinity of the IFN-receptor complex did correlate with this effect. Daudi cells, which expressed 1927 receptors/cells with a high affinity (Kd = 3.30 x 10(-10) M) were the most sensitive to the antiproliferative effect. Growth inhibition was 30% with only 1.6pg/ml of IFN. HeLa cells expressed a mixture of high (Kd = 3.36 x 10(-10) M) and low (Kd = 3.21 x 10(-9) M) affinity binding sites and were also sensitive to the antiproliferative effect but less than Daudi. HEp-2 and GL-5 cells, on the contrary, were very little sensitive to the antiproliferative effect of IFN and only expressed low affinity binding sites (Kd = 1.20 x 10(-8) M and Kd = 8.33 x 10(-9) M) respectively. On the other hand, IFN alpha-2b binding assays to peripheral blood lymphocytes from 8 healthy individuals were also carried out as normal cells for comparison. The values obtained were 433 +/- 166 receptors per cell and Kd = 3.68 2.66 x 10(-10) M.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)