Thyrotrophin-dependent desensitization by Chinese hamster ovary cells that express the recombinant human thyrotrophin receptor

Concentration-dependent regulation of thyrotropin receptor function by thyroid-stimulating antibody

Thyrotropin receptor (TSHR) Ab's of the stimulating variety are the cause of hyperthyroid Graves disease. MS-1 is a hamster mAb with TSHR-stimulating activity. To examine the in vivo biological activity of MS-1, mice were treated with purified MS-1 intraperitoneally and the thyroid response evaluated. MS-1 induced a dose-dependent increase in serum thyroxine (T4), with a maximum effect after 10 proportional, variant g of MS-1 was administered. MS-1-secreting hybridoma cells were then transferred into the peritoneum of nude mice to study chronic thyroid stimulation. Serum MS-1 levels detected after 2 weeks were approximately 10-50 proportional, variant g/ml, and the serum TSH was suppressed in all animals. Serum triiodothyronine levels were elevated, but only in animals with low serum MS-1 concentrations. In addition, there was a negative correlation between serum T4 and the serum MS-1 concentrations. These in vivo studies suggested a partial TSHR inactivation induced by excessive stimulation by MS-1. We confirmed this inactivation by demonstrating MS-1 modulation of TSHR function in vitro as evidenced by downregulation and desensitization of the TSHR at concentrations of MS-1 achieved in the in vivo studies. Thus, inactivation of the TSHR by stimulating TSHR autoantibodies (TSHR-Ab's) in Graves disease patients may provide a functional explanation for the poor correlation between thyroid function and serum TSHR-Ab concentrations.

Testosterone and estradiol differentially regulate TSH-induced thyrocyte proliferation in immature and adult rats

Though sex steroids are found to influence thyroid pathogenesis in human and in animals, their role in normal thyroid growth and thyrocyte proliferation is not yet understood fully. The present study is addressed to know the effect of testosterone and estradiol on the basal and TSH-induced thyrocyte proliferation in immature and adult rats in vitro. The male and female Wistar rats were gonadectomized (GDX) and one group of GDX rats were supplemented with either testosterone or estradiol. After the experimental period, the rats were sacrificed by decapitation and thyroid glands were removed, washed in Hank's Balanced Salt Solution (HBSS), pH 7.4 and digested with the enzyme mixture containing 0.08% collagenase and 0.12% dispase in HBSS. The isolated follicles were washed thrice with Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (DMEM) containing 0.5% fetal bovine serum (FBS), and were cultured in Falcon's tissue culture flasks containing 5 ml DMEM with FBS (5%) transferrin (5 microg/ml), hydrocortisone (10(-8) M), somatostatin (10 microg/ml), insulin (10 microg/ml) and glycyl-L-histidyl-L-lysine acetate (10 microg/ml). The cells (2.5 x 10(4)) were exposed to various exponential doses of TSH or testosterone (6.25-800 ng/ml) or estradiol (6.25-800 pg/ml). It is suggested from the present study that both TSH and sex steroids enhance thyrocyte proliferation. The mitogenic effect of TSH is greater than that of sex steroids. Sex steroids modulate TSH-induced cell proliferation in a gender-specific manner.

Specific activation of the thyrotropin receptor by trypsin

The identification of 16 different activating mutations in the TSH receptor, found in patients suffering from toxic autonomous adenomas or congenital hyperthyroidism, leads to the concept that this receptor is in a constrained conformation in its wild-type form. We used mild trypsin treatment of CHO-K1 cells or COS-7 cells, stably or transiently transfected with the human TSH receptor, respectively, and measured its consequences on the TSH receptor coupled cascades, i.e. cyclic AMP and inositol-phosphates accumulation. A 2-min, 0.01% trypsin treatment increased stably cyclic AMP but not inositol-phosphates formation. This was not observed after chymotrypsin, thrombin and endoproteinase glu C treatment. The TSH action on cyclic AMP was decreased by only 25%. The effect was also observed in cells expressing the dog TSH receptor. It was not observed in MSH receptor, LH receptor expressing or mock transfected cells (vector alone). It is therefore specific for the TSH receptor, for its action on the Gs/adenylate cyclase cascade, and for the proteolytic cleavage caused by trypsin. Using monoclonal (A. Johnstone and P. Shepherd, personal communication) and polyclonal antibodies directed against the extracellular domain of the TSH receptor, it was shown that treatment by trypsin removes or destroys a VFFEEQ epitope (residues 354-359) from the receptor. The effect mimics the action of TSH as it activates Gs alpha and enhances the action of forskolin. It is not reversible in 1 h. The results support the concept that activation of the receptor (by hormone, autoantibodies, mutations or mild proteolysis) might involve the relief of a built-in negative constrain. They suggest that the C-terminal portion of the large extracellular domain plays a role in the maintenance of this constrain.

Cloning and functional expression of a thyrotropin receptor cDNA from rat fat cells

Thyrotropin receptor (TSH-R) has been thought to be thyroid-specific, but, by Northern blot analysis, we found that rat adipose tissue expressed TSH-R mRNAs in amounts approaching those in the thyroid. To investigate the function of TSH-R from adipose tissue, we screened a rat fat cell lambda gt11 cDNA library for TSH-R sequences using a 32P-labeled rat thyroid TSH-R cDNA as a probe. Among 10(6) plaques, we obtained four positive clones. Sequencing of these cDNAs has revealed that two of them (F alpha and F beta) contained both initiation and termination codons. Comparison of F alpha with the thyroid TSH-R cDNA sequence revealed that F alpha was almost identical to the thyroid TSH-R, except that nucleotides 1041 and 1277 were changed from A to G and from C to T, respectively. In contrast, we found that F beta contained 21 novel nucleotides between nucleotides 467 and 468 of the thyroid TSH-R cDNA, encoding an additional 7 amino acids. However, when we prepared mRNA from adipose tissue and transcribed it into cDNA, we failed to amplify the F beta type of TSH-R cDNA by polymerase chain reaction, suggesting that F beta mRNAs are rare in the tissue. We then ligated F cDNAs into pSG5 and transfected them with pSV2-neo into Chinese hamster ovary (CHO)-K1 cells. TSH stimulated cAMP formation in CHO-F alpha cells in a manner similar to that in CHO cells transfected with thyroid TSH-R cDNA. In contrast, no increase of cAMP was observed in CHO-F beta cells. IgG from patients with Graves' disease (n = 4) showed thyroid-stimulating antibody activity only in CHO-F alpha cells (1288-4582%). In addition, CHO-F alpha cells and CHO cells transfected with thyroid TSH-R showed similar 125I-TSH binding activity. These results indicate that the fat cell expresses high levels of a TSH-R whose function is indistinguishable from that in the thyroid and suggest that the TSH-R autoantibody plays an important role in the pathogenesis of the extrathyroidal manifestations of Graves' disease.