Structural heterogeneity of endocytic membranes in macrophages as revealed by the cholesterol probe, filipin.

The polyene antibiotic, filipin, by specifically interacting with cholesterol, produces approximately 25-nm protuberances (filipin-sterol complexes) in freeze-fractured membranes, and the addition of filipin to aldehyde fixatives has been recently introduced as a cytochemical technique for the localization of cholesterol in cell membranes. In a previous study we showed that, in fibroblasts filipin-sterol complexes are absent from endocytic coated pits. To establish whether the absence of filipin-sterol complexes is a phenomenon restricted to coated pits or is correlated with endocytosis in general, we applied the filipin probe to cultured mouse peritoneal macrophages, in which different forms of endocytosis take place. The macrophages were incubated with bovine albumin or concanavalin A (Con A) to induce pinocytosis, and with heat-killed straphylococci or opsonized erythrocytes to induce phagocytosis, then fixed in glutaraldehyde/filipin and freeze-fractured. Filipin-sterol complexes were plentiful on the plasma membrane, on the smooth-membrane invaginations and vesicles induced by albumin, on the large endocytic vacuoles induced by Con A, and on the membrane of phagosomes but, in contrast, they were absent from coated pits and vesicles, as well as from coated segments of invagination or vesicles. These results indicate that the membranes involved in different types of endocytosis do not react in the same way with filipin and may, therefore, have a different cholesterol content. This could reflect different mechanisms of formation for the various types of endocytic vesicles.