Effect of tunicamycin on the turnover of epidermal growth factor receptors in cultured calf aorta smooth muscle cells. Comparison with IMR-90 human lung fibroblasts.

Treatment of cultured calf aorta smooth muscle cells with tunicamycin, a potent inhibitor of dolichol-mediated glycosylation, resulted in progressive loss of receptors for epidermal growth factor with 50% of receptors lost after 6 h. Receptor half-life was also 6 h with cycloheximide treatment but was 12 h with either actinomycin D or camptothesin treatment. The epidermal growth factor-induced processing (internalization and/or degradation) of residual receptors remaining after tunicamycin treatment appeared to be unaltered. 50% decrease in 125I-labeled epidermal growth factor binding was observed also with IMR-90 fibroblasts upon 6 h treatment with tunicamycin, although these cells were less sensitive to inhibition by tunicamycin of glycosylation and protein synthesis.