Incomplete nucleoside transport deficiency with increased hypoxanthine transport capability in mutant T-lymphoblastoid cells.

From a mutagenized population of wild-type mouse (S49) T-lymphoma cells, a clone, 80-5D2, was isolated in a single step by virtue of its ability to survive in 80 nM 5-fluorouridine. Unlike previously isolated nucleoside transport-deficient cell lines (A. Cohen, B. Ullman, and D. W. Martin, Jr., J. Biol. Chem. 254:112-116, 1979), 80-5D2 cells were only slightly less sensitive to growth inhibition by a variety of cytotoxic nucleosides and were capable of proliferating in hypoxanthine-amethopterin-thymidine-containing medium. The molecular basis for the phenotype of 80-5D2 cells was incomplete deficiency in the ability of the mutant cells to translocate nucleosides across the plasma membrane. Interestingly, mutant cells were more capable than wild-type cells of transporting the nucleobase hypoxanthine. Residual transport of adenosine into 80-5D2 cells was just as sensitive to inhibition by nucleosides and more sensitive to inhibition by hypoxanthine than that in wild-type cells, indicating that the phenomena of ligand binding and translocation can be uncoupled genetically. The 80-5D2 cells lacked cell surface binding sites for the potent inhibitor of nucleoside transport p-nitrobenzylthioinosine (NBMPR) and, consequently, were largely resistant to the physiological effects of NBMPR. However, the altered transporter retained its sensitivity to dipyridamole, another inhibitor of nucleoside transport. The biochemical phenotype of the 80-5D2 cell line supports the hypothesis that the determinants that comprise the nucleoside carrier site, the hypoxanthine carrier site, the NBMPR binding site, and the dipyridamole binding site of the nucleoside transport function of mouse S49 cells are genetically distinguishable.