Monitoring the Targeting of Cathepsin D to the Lysosome by Metabolic Labeling and Pulse-chase Analysis

Mannose 6-phosphate receptors function can be studied in living cells by investigating alterations in processing and secretion of their ligand Cathepsin D. The assay described here is well established in the literature and comprises the metabolic labeling of newly synthesized proteins with [35S] methionine-cysteine in HeLa cells to monitor Cathepsin D processing through secretory pathway and secretion using immunoprecipitation, SDS-PAGE and fluorography.