Control and virus-transformed baby hamster kidney cells resistant to ethidium bromide. II. Membrane properties.

Aspects of membrane structure and functions were studied in ethidium bromide resistant cells. Submitochondrial particles were solubilized and electrophoresed. The gel patterns, representing mitochondrial membrane proteins, demonstrated qualitative and quantitative alterations in mitochondrial preparations derived from virus-transformed cells and ethidium bromide resistant cells as compared to the control cells. The plasma membrane glycoproteins were labelled by the sodium borohydride method. The glycoproteins were pleased with Triton X-100 and electrophoresed. Fluorograms of the gels demonstrated some marked differences between the ethidium bromide resistant cells and their parental strain. The observed alterations in the membrane glycoproteins did not result in altered glucose transport properties or in the elution patterns of plasma membrane glycopeptides as analyzed by Sephadex G-50 chromatography. Dye uptake and binding studies with intact parental and drug resistant cells and their isolated mitochondria demonstrated no alteration of the membrane permeability or the number of binding sites for ethidium bromide. Similar results were also obtained with a cyanine dye. This latter finding was significant in that it permitted one to exclude dye exclusion as a mechanism for ethidium bromide resistance.