The disappearance of vasoactive-intestinal-peptide (VIP) binding sites at the cell surface of a cultured target cell, originating from a human colonic adenocarcinoma (HT 29 cell line), was studied, after preexposition of the cell to the peptide, as a function of time, VIP concentration and temperature. Maximum effect (60 -8O0/o loss of binding capacity) was obtained after a 5-10 min exposure of the cells at 37°C with a VIP concentration of 100 nM. The tljz of maximum disappearance was less than 2 min and the concentration of native VIP giving half-maximum decrease in lZ5I-VIP binding was 6 nM. The affinity of remaining binding sites for VIP was not affected compared to that of control cells (Kd = 0.3 nM). Disappearance of VIP binding sites was spccific sincc, with the same conditions of preincubation, the specific binding of '251-labeled epidermal growth factor to HT 29 cells was not modified. The phenomenon was reversible and 90% of binding capacity could be restored in less than 60 min by incubating cells in VIP-free medium. Correlatively we showed, by two independent experimental procedures, that lZ5I-VIP, initially bound to HT 29 cells, was maximally internalized after 10 min of incubation at 37"C. All the data strongly suggest that: (1) internalization of VIP is receptor-mediated; (2) upon exposure to native VIP, VIP receptors are down-regulated or at least sequestered within HT 29 cells.The regulation of the concentration of cell-surface receptors is a general way for the cell to modulate its responsiveness to hormones, growth factors or neurotransmitters. Loss of cell-surface receptor binding is generally obtained by exposure of target cells to the effector itself. This phenomenon occurs with a number of polypeptidic hormones including insulin [l], epidermal growth factor (EGF) [2], platelet-derived growth factor [3,4], human growth hormone [5], thyroliberin [6] and thyrotropin [7, 81. The reduced capacity of cells to bind the ligand was not attributable, in most cases, to a decreased affinity of the receptor for its ligand but to a reduction in the number of cell surface receptors [l, 5, 7, 9, 101.In several cases, the internalization of the ligand-receptors complexes, followed by the degradation of the receptor and of the ligand have been demonstrated [3,. These events have been proposed to represent the down-regulation of cellular receptors. The consequence of receptor down-regulation is generally a refractoriness of cells to agents acting at the cell-surface receptors. For example, the down-regulation of EGF receptors leads to a desensitization of the cells to the growth factor and to a reduced mitogenic response [14]. Likewise, in pathological states, such as some cases of obesity, large concentrations of insulin in the blood stream involve a decreased sensitivity of target tissues to the hormone [15, 161.The down-regulation of /?-adrenergic receptors has been extensively studied and it appears from two recent reports [I 7, 181 that one may distinguish between sequestration and downregulation of j-re...