Structure of mouse Fc receptor.

A variety of mouse cell types were externally labeled with radioactive iodine and solubilized in detergent. A single chain radioactive molecule of mol. wt. 120 000 was precipitated from lysates of surface-labeled lymphocytes, macrophages and fibroblasts by complexes between pneumococcal type 3 polysaccharide and its homologous rabbit antibody in the IgG form, but not as F(ab')2 or Facb. The same results were obtained using an alternative precipitating system, namely ovalbumin and IgG and F(ab')2 forms of rabbit anti-ovalbumin. The 120 000 mol. wt. compound could not be detected on a thymoma cell line (5178) previously known to lack the Fc receptor. On the basis of these criteria the material was therefore identified as mouse Fc receptor. Although very susceptible to proteolysis, the fragments resulting from digestion remain associated by disulfide bonds in such a way as to still bind to the antibody-antigen precipitate. The proteolytic fragmentation products (mol. wts. 75 000, 45 000, 20 000 and 10 000) only become apparent upon chemical reduction, but the ease with which the molecule is degraded explains the wide variation in mol. wts. reported for the Fc receptor, and is perhaps a clue to explain the biological role of the molecule.