Inhibition of clathrin-coated vesicle acidification by duramycin

Clathrin-coated vesicles contain a proton translocating ATPase which operates in parallel with a chloride transporter (Xie, X.-S., Stone, D.K., and Racker, E. (1983) J. Biol. Chem. 258, 14834-14838). The polypeptide antibiotic, duramycin, has a dual inhibitory effect on clathrin-coated vesicle acidification. Low amounts of duramycin (5 μg/100 μg of protein) inhibit by 50% the proton translocation facilitated by chloride translocation. Under these conditions duramycin inhibits also ³⁶Cl uptake when driven by either the electrogenic proton pump or by inward directed K⁺ movement in the presence of valinomycin. Higher amounts of duramycin (20 μg/100 μg of protein) are needed to inhibit by 50% the proton pump itself, as evidenced by reduced proton translocation facilitated by an outward potassium movement in the presence of valinomycin. In addition, the amount of duramycin needed to inhibit the proton pump corresponded well with the amount needed to inhibit the ouabain-insensitive, N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive ATPase activity of clathrin-coated vesicles.