The parameters regulating the internalization and recycling of transferrin-specific receptors were determined in guinea pig leukemic B lymphocytes, in the absence or presence of ligand. We show that after the cells were purified, 45-56% of the total receptors were on the cell surface. In the absence of transferrin, unoccupied receptors are quickly internalized (rate constant, 0.12 min-') whereas their recycling is much slower (rate constant, 0.026 min-'). This difference between endocytosis and recycling rates leads to a balanced receptor distribution with only 22% of the total receptors outside after incubation of the cells for 20 -30 min at 37 "C. The internalization rate of occupied receptors, measured in the presence of transferrin is faster (rate constant, 0.21 min-') than that of unoccupied receptors calculated in the absence of transferrin (0.12 min-'; see above). On the other hand, mere binding of transferrin to its receptor, without internalization, arrested by cytoplasm acidification, is sufficient to induce a large increase (by a factor of seven) in the recycling rate of unoccupied internal receptors from 0.026 min-' to 0.17 min-'. Thus, in these lymphocytes, transferrin mobilizes internal receptors by modifying the kinetic rates of internalization and recycling, leading to a new equilibrium between external and internal receptors.Iron is a critical component for animal cell proliferation (Titeux et al., 1984). It is brought into cells by transferrin, a serum protein internalized by endocytosis, after binding to specific surface receptors. Although the existence of specific receptors for transferrin was first proposed by Jandl and Katz (1963), the transferrin receptor was not purified and adequately characterized until 1979 (Seligman et al., 1979; Wdda et al., 1979; for reviews, see Trowbridge et al., 1984, and Irie and Tavassoli, 1987). Receptor and transferrin cycles have been fully elucidated in many cells (Morgan, 1981(Morgan, , 1983Ciechanover et al., 1983;Dautry-Varsat et al., 1983), but the signal or signals required for internalization and recycling of the receptor-ligand complex is/are not completely known. Although there are a few controversial results on the subject (Enns et al., 1983;Klausner et al., 1984), it is generally assumed that unoccupied receptors follow the same cycle as transferrin-receptor complexes (Watts, 1985;Ajioka and Kaplan, 1986;Stein and Sussman, 1986). Until Gironks and Davis (1989), the comparative study of the endocytosis and recycling rate constants for unoccupied and occupied receptors had not been determined. In fact, many compounds have been proposed as modifiers of the rate constants of this process, based on their effects on external/internal receptor distribution, i.e. peptide hormones, growth factors (Davis et al., 1986;Davis and Czech, 1986; Castagnola et al., 1987), phorbol esters (May and Tyler, 1987; Sorokin et al., 1986), antibodies (McArdle and Morgan, 1983) or even transferrin itself (Klausner et al., 1983(Klausner et al., , 1984 Alcantara et al., 19...