Accumulation of weak bases in relation to intralysosomal pH in cultured human skin fibroblasts

The volume of the lysosomal compartment in cultured human skin fibroblasts was estimated from the distribution between the cells and the medium of tracer amounts of labelled methylamine and chloroquine, which accumulate in the lysosomes, 2,2-dimethyloxazolidine-2,4-dione, which accumulates in the soluble cytoplasmic compartment relative to the lysosomes, and sucrose, which is excluded by the cells. In a foetal fibroblast line, the fractional volume of the lysosomal compartment was 0.044 +/- 0.007 (n = 8). In fibroblasts from a patient with the I-cell disease, the fractional volume was 0.15. The fractional volume of the lysosomal compartment was used to calculate the intralysosomal pH from the accumulation of the weak bases in the cells. The mean value obtained was 5.29 +/- 0.04 (n = 8). In fibroblasts incubated with various concentrations of chloroquine, the fractional volume of the lysosomal compartment and the accumulation of chloroquine in the cells were used to calculate the concentration of chloroquine in the lysosomes. The intralysosomal concentration increased from 3 to 114 mM as the extracellular concentration increased from 1 to 100 microM. Concomitantly, the intralysosomal pH increased from 5.3 in the absence of chloroquine to 5.9 in the presence of 100 microM chloroquine. A similar increase in intralysosomal pH could be calculated in fibroblasts incubated with different concentrations of ammonia