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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1980 May;77(5):2735–2739. doi: 10.1073/pnas.77.5.2735

Epidermal growth factor-induced down-regulation of receptor does not occur in HeLa cells grown in defined medium.

R A Wolfe, R Wu, G H Sato
PMCID: PMC349478  PMID: 6248863

Abstract

125I-Labeled epidermal growth factor (EGF) binds to HeLa cells in culture under completely defined conditions in a specific and saturable manner. When the cultures are maintained in serum, all the reported phenomena of down-regulation occur. In contrast, in cultures maintained in serum-free hormone-supplemented medium, binding is maximal after 50 min and remains constant for at least 18 hr. EGF retains its mitogenic activity in this defined system; as little as 4 pM EGF elicits a 2-fold increase in cell number in 5 days. EGF appears to be in reversible equilibrium with a constant number of surface receptors, and gel filtration analysis indicates a decrease in the rate of degradation and release of bound 125I-labeled EGF. These results indicate that EGF can retain its mitogenic activity in the absence of concomitant down-regulation.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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