Effects of cycloheximide and actinomycin D on the amino acid transport system of tetrahymena

Abstract Tetrahymena pyriformis were grown in axenic culture to late logarithmic and stationary phases, resuspended in an inorganic medium, and the rates of transport of α‐aminoisobutyric acid (AIB) and of the decarboxylation of L‐[1‐ 14 C]leucine and L‐[1‐ 14 C]tyrosine were measured. There was a rapid loss of each of these measures of amino acid transport in both late log phase and stationary phase cells. Addition of actinomycin D to the washed cells caused a small increase in the rate of loss of capacity to decarboxylate tyrosine and leucine. Addition of cycloheximide to the washed cells caused a reduction in the rates of loss of capacity to transport AIB and to decarboxylate leucine and tyrosine except that in late log phase cells cycloheximide markedly increased the rate of loss of capacity to decarboxylate leucine. When cells that had been pretreated with chlorpromazine to reduce their amino acid transport capacity were washed and resuspended in proteose peptone the capacity to decarboxylate tyrosine and leucine increased to control values within 1.5 hours. Addition of actinomycin D reduced the rate of recovery of transport capacity, but addition of cycloheximide caused transport capacity to decrease further. These results raised the possibility that there were two amino acid transport systems in this cell. The finding that AIB and N‐methylaminoisobutyrate are both taken up by Tetrahymena , the latter at one‐eighth the rate of the former, but that neither one alters the rate of uptake of the other provides preliminary support for this possibility. The present results further suggest that the transport system(s) has a short lifetime and that the balance between rate of synthesis and rate of loss of the transport system is controlled in part by the presence of exogenous amino acids.