Abstract
Plasma membrane proteins mediate important aspects of physiology, including nutrient acquisition, cell-cell interactions, and monitoring homeostasis. The trafficking of these proteins, involving internalisation from and/or recycling back to the cell surface, is often critical to their functions. These processes can vary among different proteins and cell types and states and are still being elucidated. Current strategies to measure surface protein internalisation and recycling are typically microscopy or biochemical assays; these are accurate but generally limited to analysing a homogenous cell population and are often low throughput. Here, we present flow cytometry-based methods involving probe-conjugated antibodies that enable quantification of internalisation or recycling rates at the single-cell level in complex samples. To measure internalisation, we detail an assay where the protein of interest is labelled with a specific antibody conjugated to a fluorescent oligonucleotide-labelled probe. To measure recycling, a specific antibody conjugated to a cleavable biotin group is employed. These probes permit the differentiation of molecules that have been internalised or recycled from those that have not. When combined with cell-specific marker panels, these methods allow the quantitative study of plasma membrane protein trafficking dynamics in a heterogenous cell mixture at the single-cell level. Key features • These assays allow sensitive quantification of internalised or recycled surface molecules using oligonucleotide or cleavable biotin-conjugated probes, respectively, and detected by flow cytometry. • They can be adapted to any membrane protein that transits via the cell surface and for which a specific purified antibody is available. • The dynamics of a cell surface protein can be measured in heterogenous cell populations simultaneously, including various cellular activation states. • The internalisation assay builds upon the method developed by Liu et al. [1,2] and extends its application to heterogenous human peripheral blood mononuclear cells. • These assays have been extensively used on suspension cells but have not been tested on adherent cells.