Endocytosis of sulphated proteoglycans by cultured skin fibroblasts.

1. Human skin fibroblasts internalize homologous sulphated proteoglycans by adsorptive endocytosis. Endocytosis rate is half maximal when the concentration of the proteoglycans is 0.1 nM. At saturation, a single fibroblast may endocytose up to 8 X 10(6) proteoglycan molecules/h. 2. The kinetics of prote;glycan binding to the cell surface suggest the presence of 6 X 10(5) high-affinity binding sites per cell. The bulk of sulphated proteoglycans associates to low-affinity binding sites on the cell surface. 3. Glycosaminoglycans and other anionic macromolecules inhibit endocytosis of sulphated proteoglycans non-competitively. The lack of interaction of glycosaminoglycans with the cell-surface receptors for sulphated proteoglycans suggests that the protein core of proteoglycans is essential for binding to the cell surface. 4. The effects of trypsin, cell density, serum concentration and medium pH on endocytosis and degradation of endocytosed sulphated proteoglycans is described. 5. A comparison of the number of the high-affinity binding sites and the number of molecules endocytosed with respect to time suggests a recycling of the proteoglycan receptors between the cell surface and the endocytotic vesicles and/or the lysosomes.