Insulin receptor (IR) and class I major histocompatibility complex molecules associate with one another in cell membranes, but the functional consequences of this association are not defined. We found that IR and human class I molecules (HLA-I) associate in liposome membranes and that the affinity of IR for insulin and its tyrosine kinase activity increase as the HLA:IR ratio increases over the range 1:1 to 20:1. The same relationship between HLA:IR and IR function was found in a series of B-LCL cell lines. The association of HLA-I and IR depends upon the presence of free HLA heavy chains. All of the effects noted were reduced or abrogated if liposomes or cells were incubated with excess HLA-I light chain, 2-microglobulin. Increasing HLA:IR also enhanced phosphorylation of insulin receptor substrate-1 and the activation of phosphoinositide 3-kinase. HLA-I molecules themselves were phosphorylated on tyrosine and associated with phosphoinositide 3-kinase when B-LCL were stimulated with insulin.
INTRODUCTIONThe manifold effects of insulin on cell physiology are mediated by a specific insulin receptor (IR). Insulin binding triggers a conformational change in IR, stimulating its tyrosine kinase activity and leading to its autophosphorylation (Rosen, 1987;White and Kahn, 1994). The insulin signal is propagated downstream of the IR kinase by the binding and tyrosine phosphorylation of docking proteins that connect IR to signaling pathways by mediating the binding of intracellular signaling proteins (Backer et al., 1992;Kuhne et al., 1993;Myers et al., 1994).IR has been shown to associate with other proteins in the plane of the plasma membrane. Some of these associations, i.e., with PC-1, a transmembrane glycoprotein (Maddux et al., 1995) and with  adrenergic receptors (Karoor, et al., 1995;Baltensperger, et al., 1996), clearly have functional consequences. The first affects the kinase activity of IR, and the second affects the function of  adrenergic receptors. In contrast, no functional effects have been clearly shown for another lateral association of IR, i.e., that with the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) I molecules, mouse H2 and human HLA. Although the association of IR with these molecules has been demonstrated using biophysical and biochemical techniques (Fehlmann et al., 1985a;Phillips et al., 1986;Edidin and Reiland, 1990;Liegler et al., 1991), there is little evidence that this association has functional consequences for either IR or MHC I molecules. At best, some studies correlate MHC phenotype with insulin binding and signaling activity (Lafuse and Edidin, 1980;Kittur et al., 1987;Edidin, 1988), but others do not (Verland et al., 1989;Liegler et al., 1991). Thus the consequences, if any, of the association between IR and MHC I molecules remain unclear.We have used a two-part strategy to detect the formation of molecular complexes between IR and human MHC I molecules, HLA, and to measure the functional consequences of this association for insulinmediated signaling and the state of MHC phosphorylati...