Down-regulation is a classic response of most G protein-coupled receptors to prolonged agonist stimulation. We recently showed that when expressed in baby hamster kidney cells, the human  1 -but not the  2 -adrenergic receptor (AR) is totally resistant to agonistmediated down-regulation, whereas both have similar rates of basal degradation (Liang, W., Austin, S., Hoang, Q., and Fishman, P. H. (2003) J. Biol. Chem. 278, 39773-39781). To identify the underlying mechanism(s) for this resistance, we investigated the role of proteasomes, lysosomes, and ubiquitination in the degradation of  1 AR expressed in baby hamster kidney and human embryonic kidney 293 cells. Both lysosomal and proteasomal inhibitors reduced  1 AR degradation in agonist-stimulated cells but were less effective on basal degradation. To determine whether  1 AR trafficked to lysosomes we used confocal fluorescence microscopy. We observed some colocalization of  1 AR and lysosomal markers in agonist-treated cells but much less than that of  2 AR even in cells co-transfected with arrestin-2, which increases  1 AR internalization. Ubiquitination of  2 AR readily occurred in agonist-stimulated cells, whereas ubiquitination of  1 AR was not detectable even under conditions optimal for that of  2 AR. Moreover, in cells expressing AR chimeras in which the C termini have been switched, the chimeric  1 AR with  2 AR C-tail underwent ubiquitination and down-regulation, but the chimeric  2 AR with  1 AR C-tail did not. Our results demonstrate for the first time that  1 AR and  2 AR differ in the ability to be ubiquitinated. Because ubiquitin serves as a signal for sorting membrane receptors to lysosomes, the lack of agonist-mediated ubiquitination of  1 AR may prevent its extensive trafficking to lysosomes and, thus, account for its resistance to down-regulation.