Internalization of the M2 muscarinic acetylcholine receptor proceeds through an atypical pathway in HEK293 cells that is independent of clathrin and caveolae.

The M2 muscarinic acetylcholine receptor is a G-protein coupled receptor that undergoes agonist-induced internalization through an unidentified pathway that exhibits an atypical dependence on dynamin function in HEK293 cells. In this report we utilized several independent approaches to reveal that the internalization of the M2 muscarinic acetylcholine receptor did not utilize clathrin-coated pits or caveolae. However, we did observe that treatment with hypertonic sucrose, which is widely reported to specifically inhibit endocytosis through clathrin-coated pits, completely inhibited internalization of the M2 muscarinic acetylcholine receptor. Thus, the pathway that mediates the internalization of the M2 muscarinic acetylcholine receptor appears to be atypical in that it exhibits an unusual sensitivity to dynamin and is inhibited by hypertonic sucrose but lacks the involvement of clathrin and caveolae.