Insulin-like growth factor (IGF) binding in hypophysectomized rat liver microsomes: alteration by a soluble binding moiety.

In this study, we compared the binding of IGF-I and IGF-II to liver microsomes of normal and hypophysectomized (Hypox) rats. The binding of [125I]-IGF-II, measured by centrifugation of membrane-bound ligand, was lower in hypox than in normal rats (15 +/- 2 vs 26 +/- 1%, p less than 0.001) but binding was increased (46 +/- 1.5 vs 31 +/- 1%, p less than 0.001) when bound and free hormones were separated using polyethyleneglycol (PEG) precipitation. This was due to the presence of soluble binding activity which dissociated from membranes to compete for IGF binding. When soluble binding activity was first removed from microsomal membranes by a washing procedure no difference was found in [125I]-IGF-II binding to microsomes of Hypox and normal animals (33 +/- 1 s 32 +/- 1%). However, in the microsomal washing supernatant from Hypox (containing soluble binding activity) IGF-II binding was much higher than in that from normals (17 +/- 2 vs 6 +/- 0.5%, p less than 0.001). The binding of [125I]-IGF-I was lower than that of [125I]-IGF-II but was comparably changed. By contrast, [125I]-insulin binding was similar in Hypox and normal rats and was not influenced by PEG precipitation or prewashing of the membranes. Inhibition dose-response curves showed a paradoxical increase in [125I]-IGF-II binding to unwashed microsomes of Hypox rats in the range of 0.5-5 ng/ml cold IGF-II. In normal animals [125I]-IGF-II binding to microscomes was progressively inhibited by IGF-II in a range of 0.5-500 ng/ml.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)