Fates of endocytosed somatostatin sst2 receptors and associated agonists

Somatostatin agonists are rapidly and efficiently internalized with the somatostatin sst2 receptor. The fate of internalized agonists and receptors is of critical importance because the rate of ligand recycling back to the cell surface can limit the amount of radioligand accumulated inside the cells, whereas receptor recycling might be of vital importance in providing the cell surface with dephosphorylated, resensitized receptors. Furthermore the accumulation of radioisotope-conjugated somatostatin agonists inside cancer cells resulting from receptor-mediated internalization has been used as a treatment for cancers that overexpress somatostatin receptors. In the present study, radio-iodinated agonists at the sst2 somatostatin receptor were employed to allow quantitative analysis of the fate of endocytosed agonist. After endocytosis, recycling back to the cell surface was the main pathway for both 125I-labelled somatostatin-14 (SRIF-14) and the more stable agonist 125I-labelled cyclo(N-Me-Ala-Tyr-d-Trp-Lys-Abu-Phe) (BIM-23027; Abu stands for aminobutyric acid), accounting for 75-85% of internalized ligand when re-endocytosis of radioligand was prevented. We have shown that there is a dynamic cycling of both somatostatin agonist ligands and receptors between the cell surface and internal compartments both during agonist treatment and after surface-bound agonist has been removed, unless steps are taken to prevent the re-activation of receptors by recycled agonist. Internalization leads to increased degradation of 125I-labelled SRIF-14 but not 125I-labelled BIM-23027. The concentration of recycled agonist accumulating in the extracellular medium was sufficient to re-activate the receptor, as measured both by the inhibition of forskolin-stimulated adenylate cyclase and the recovery of surface receptor number after internalization.