Modification of fluid lipid and mobile protein fractions of reticulocyte plasma membranes affects agonist-stimulated adenylate cyclase. Application of the percolation theory.

The technique of fluorescence recovery after photobleaching was used to measure the lateral mobility of membrane integral proteins in reticulocyte plasma membranes which were treated to modify the 'fluid' lipid or immobilized protein fractions, hence increasing the relative prevalence of obstacles to protein lateral motion. This was achieved by either: (1) treating the plasma membranes with phospholipase A2 followed by extraction of the hydrolysis products using fatty-acid-free bovine serum albumin, resulting in a decrease in the membrane 'fluid' lipid portion; or (2) preincubating the plasma membranes with polylysines, resulting in plasma membrane protein aggregation and immobilization. As the prevalence of obstacles to lateral motion increased in plasma membranes through the treatments described above, the mobility of the membrane integral proteins diminished. Experimental results for the dependence of protein mobility on the prevalence of obstacles to lateral motion were compared to theoretical data in order to verify the applicability of the percolation theory to reticulocyte plasma membranes. The influence of a decrease in the 'fluid' lipid and an increase in the immobilized membrane protein fractions upon the hormone-stimulated adenylate cyclase activity has been studied as well. As the 'solid' lipid and immobilized membrane protein fractions decreased, both the hormone-stimulated adenylate cyclase activity and the fraction of beta-adrenergic receptors with high affinity to hormone diminished. It was shown that this correlation can be caused by a decrease in membrane fraction accessible to the movement of the interacting proteins of the adenylate cyclase complex. Hormonal stimulation of adenylate cyclase is discussed in terms of the percolation theory.