Alveolar cells: incorporation of carbohydrate into protein and evidence for intracellular protein transport.

Alveolar cells incubated with radioactive glucosamine, galactose, and mannose incorporate radioactivity into protein, that is, into material insoluble in cold and hot trichloroacetic acid and not extracted by lipid solvents. This incorporation is incompletely inhibited by puromycin hydrochloride. The kinetics of the subcellular distribution of radioactivity are consistent with a precursor-product relationship between microsomal protein and the protein of particles sedimenting at 15,000 g. It is thus suggested that alveolar cells incorporate these substrates intact into protein at the microsomal level with subsequent transfer of this newly formed material to particles sedimenting at 15,000 g.