P-glycoprotein does not reduce substrate concentration from the extracellular leaflet of the plasma membrane in living cells.

P-glycoprotein (Pgp), a member of the ATP-binding cassette family of transporters, is an important mediator of multidrug resistance in cancer. Pgp exhibits a very broad specificity for substrates. These substrates share a common feature of being amphipathic and can orient into either leaflet of the membrane bilayer. Current evidence suggests that Pgp recognizes and extracts substrates from the membrane bilayer, but from which leaflet is unresolved. To directly test whether Pgp can decrease substrate concentration in the extracellular leaflet of the plasma membrane in living cells, we used the fluorescent lipid analogue 1-[4-(trimethylamino)phenyl]-6-phenylhexa-1,3,5-triene (TMA-DPH). TMA-DPH in the extracellular solution rapidly partitions into the extracellular leaflet of the plasma membrane and exhibits slow transbilayer flipping into the cytoplasmic leaflet. Because TMA-DPH fluorescence is confined to the extracellular leaflet in early time points after addition but labels intracellular membranes after longer incubation, we can assess the effect of Pgp on TMA-DPH concentration from both extracellular leaflet and intracellular membranes. Transient transfection with a Pgp and the green fluorescence protein (GFP) fusion protein generated cells with heterogeneous expression levels of Pgp-GFP. Compared with nonexpressing cells, cells expressing Pgp-GFP showed decreased accumulation of TMA-DPH in intracellular membranes but similar levels of accumulation in the extracellular leaflet of the plasma membrane. Additionally, in drug-selected MCF7/Adr cells, which constitutively express high levels of Pgp, inhibition of Pgp by cyclosporin A resulted in significantly increased accumulation of TMA-DPH in intracellular membranes but no difference in its accumulation in the extracellular leaflet of the plasma membrane. These data indicate that whereas Pgp can extract TMA-DPH from the cytoplasmic leaflet of the membrane, any activity Pgp may possess in the extracellular leaflet is insufficient to decrease TMA-DPH concentration there and, therefore, does not contribute to lowering the cellular levels. Pgp is the prototype of an increasing number of clinically important ATP-binding cassette transporters of amphipathic drugs and lipids. These results may help decipher a common mechanism of these transporters.