Apelin is a novel neuropeptide involved in the regulation of body fluid homeostasis and cardiovascular functions. It acts through a G protein-coupled receptor, the APJ receptor. We studied the structure-activity relationships of apelin at the rat apelin receptor, tagged at its C-terminal end with enhanced green fluorescent protein and stably expressed in CHO cells. We evaluated the potency of N-and C-terminal deleted fragments of K17F to bind with high affinity to the apelin receptor, and to inhibit cAMP production and to induce apelin receptor internalization. We first characterized the internalization and trafficking of the rat apelin receptor. This receptor was internalized via a clathrin-dependent mechanism and our results suggest that receptor trafficking may follow a recycling pathway. We then tried to identify the amino acids of K17F required for apelin activity. The first five N-terminal and the last two C-terminal amino acids of K17F were not essential for apelin binding or the inhibition of cAMP production. However, the full-length sequence of K17F was the most potent inducer of apelin receptor internalization because successive N-terminal amino-acid deletions progressively reduced internalization and the removal of a single amino acid at the C-terminus abolished this process. Finally, the most novel observation of this work is that hypotensive actions of apelin peptides correlate best with the ability of those ligands to internalize. Thus, apelin receptor signaling and endocytosis are functionally dissociated, possibly reflecting the existence of several conformational states of this receptor, stabilized by the binding of different apelin fragments to the apelin receptor.

Apelin is a neuropeptide that co-localizes with vasopressin (AVP) in magnocellular neurons and is involved in body fluid homeostasis. Osmotic stimuli have opposite effects on the regulation of apelin and AVP secretion in animal models, but whether this is true in humans is unknown. This study investigated the relationship among osmolality, apelin, and AVP in 10 healthy men after infusion of hypertonic saline or loading with water to increase and decrease plasma osmolality, respectively. Increasing plasma osmolality was accompanied by a parallel, linear increase in plasma AVP concentration and by a decrease in plasma apelin concentration. In contrast, decreasing plasma osmolality by water loading reduced plasma AVP concentration and rapidly increased plasma apelin concentration. These findings suggest that regulation of apelin secretion contributes to the maintenance of body fluid homeostasis. The osmotic pressure of body fluids is maintained within a remarkably narrow range in healthy adults. Body fluid homeostasis depends on neuronal pathways bearing very sensitive osmoreceptors, 1 located along the lamina terminalis, including the circumventricular organs, such as the subfornical organ and the organum vasculosum of the lamina terminalis as well as the median preoptic nucleus. 2 The subfornical organ and organum vasculosum of the lamina terminalis are neuronally interconnected with each other as well as with the median preoptic nucleus and the hypothalamic paraventricular and supraoptic nuclei. 3 These neuronal pathways convert small changes in osmolality into a neuronal signal to neurons that influence sensations of thirst and systemic arginine vasopressin (AVP) release, 2 thereby adjusting the intake or output of water to counteract changes in solute concentration. 4,5 A recently discovered peptide, apelin, may also play a major role in the maintenance of body fluid homeostasis. Apelin, initially isolated from bovine stomach extracts, 6 is the endogenous ligand of the human orphan G protein-coupled receptor APJ (putative receptor protein related to the angiotensin receptor AT1). 6,7 It is a 36 -amino acid peptide (apelin 36) derived from a single 77-amino acid precursor, proapelin. 6,8,9 Proapelin has a fully conserved C-terminal 17-amino acid sequence, apelin 17 (K17F), including the pyroglutamyl form of apelin 13 (pE13F). K17F and pE13F both are present in rat brain and plasma, 10 and apelin 36 is present in testis and uterus. 11 All peptides exhibit a high affinity for the human 8,12,13 and the rat apelin receptors. 14 Apelin possesses various cardiovascular functions (for reviews, [15][16][17] ). Apelin and its receptor have been detected in the endothelial cells of large conduit arteries, coronary vessels, and the endocar-

Apelin is the endogenous ligand of the orphan seven-transmembrane domain (TM) G protein-coupled receptor APJ. Apelin is involved in the regulation of body fluid homeostasis and cardiovascular functions. We previously showed the importance of the C-terminal Phe of apelin 17 (K17F) in the hypotensive activity of this peptide. Here, we show either by deleting the Phe residue (K16P) or by substituting it by an Ala (K17A), that it plays a crucial role in apelin receptor internalization but not in apelin binding or in G␣ i -protein coupling. Then we built a homology three-dimensional model of the human apelin receptor using the cholecystokinin receptor-1 model as a template, and we subsequently docked K17F into the binding site. We visualized a hydrophobic cavity at the bottom of the binding pocket in which the C-