Cell density and amino acid transport in 3T3, SV3T3, and SV3T3 revertant cells.

The transport of selected neutral and cationic amino acids has been studied in Balb/c 3T3, SV3T3, and SV3T3 revertant cell lines. After properly timed preincubations to control the size of internal amino acid pools, the activity of systems A, ASC, L, and Ly+ has been discriminated by measurements of amino acid uptake (initial entry rate) in the presence and absence of sodium and of transport-specific model substrates. L-Proline, 2-aminoisobutyric acid, and glycine were primarily taken up by system A; L-alanine and L-serine by system ASC; L-phenylalanine by system L; and L-lysine by system Ly+ in SV3T3 cells. L-Proline and L-serine were also preferential substrates of systems A and ASC, respectively, in 3T3 and SV3T3 revertant cells. Transport activity of the Na+-dependent systems A and ASC decreased markedly with the increase of cell density, whereas the activity of the Na+-independent systems L and Ly+ remained substantially unchanged. The density-dependent change in activity of system A occurred through a mechanism affecting transport maximum (Vmax) rather than substrate concentration for half-maximal velocity (Km). Transport activity of systems A and ASC was several-fold higher in transformed SV3T3 cells than in 3T3 parental cells at all the culture densities that could be compared. In SV3T3 revertant cells, transport activity by these systems remained substantially similar to that observed in transformed SV3T3 cells. The results presented here add cell density as a regulatory factor of the activity of systems A and ASC, and show that this control mechanism of amino acid transport is maintained in SV40 virus-transformed 3T3 cells that have lost density-dependent inhibition of growth, as well as in SV3T3 revertant cells that have resumed it.