The autosomal recessive hypercholesterolemia (ARH) protein plays a critical role in regulating plasma low density lipoprotein (LDL) levels. Inherited defects in ARH lead to a hypercholesterolemia that closely phenocopies that caused by a defective LDL receptor. The elevated serum LDL-cholesterol levels typical of ARH patients and the pronounced accumulation of the LDL receptor at the cell surface of hepatocytes in ARH-null mice argue that ARH operates by promoting the internalization of the LDL receptor within clathrin-coated vesicles. ARH contains an amino-terminal phosphotyrosine-binding domain that associates physically with the LDL receptor internalization sequence and with phosphoinositides. The carboxyl-terminal half of ARH contains a clathrin-binding sequence and a separate AP-2 adaptor binding region providing a plausible mechanism for how ARH can act as an endocytic adaptor or CLASP (clathrin-associated sorting protein) to couple LDL receptors with the clathrin machinery. Because the interaction with AP-2 is highly selective for the independently folded appendage domain of the 2 subunit, we have characterized the ARH 2 appendagebinding sequence in detail. Unlike the known ␣ appendage-binding motifs, ARH requires an extensive sequence tract to bind the  appendage with comparably high affinity. A minimal 16-residue sequence functions autonomously and depends upon ARH residues Asp 253 , Phe 259 , Leu 262 , and Arg 266 . We suggested that biased  subunit engagement by ARH and the only other 2 appendage selective adaptor, -arrestin, promotes efficient incorporation of this mechanistically distinct subset of CLASPs into clathrin-coated buds.Clathrin-coated vesicles are short lived transport intermediates fabricated solely for the preferential sorting and intracellular trafficking of select transmembrane proteins, bound ligands, and lipids (1-3). Clathrin coats assemble at several discrete intracellular sites where, typically, different cargo molecules are sorted. As the two major clathrin-associated heterotetrameric adaptor proteins (AP-1 and AP-2) are generally restricted to particular sorting stations within the cell, a long standing model has been that adaptors direct the process of cargo selection (4). Different subunits of the adaptor complex directly engage different classes of sorting sequences. The 2 subunit binds to YXXØ-type (where Ø is a bulky hydrophobic amino acid) sorting signals in a phosphorylation-dependent manner (3,5,6). In the basal state, the orientation of the 2 subunit within AP-2 makes the YXXØ interaction surface inaccessible. Phosphorylation on 2 residue Thr 156 is believed to alter the conformation of 2 to allow productive engagement of the YXXØ sequence (7-9). Another sorting sequence termed the (DE)XXXL(LI) motif is recognized by AP-1, AP-2, and AP-3 (6). Recent evidence suggests that the (DE)XXXL(LI) sequence is bound by a hemicomplex of the ␥ and 1 subunits in AP-1 or the ␦ and 3 subunits in AP-3 (10), although the precise location of the interaction site remains to be det...