Biology subjects

Kuriyan, J.

Publications and source records attributed to Kuriyan, J..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2018

Switch-like activation of Bruton’s tyrosine kinase by membrane-mediated dimerization

The transformation of molecular binding events into cellular decisions is the basis of most biological signal transduction. A fundamental challenge faced by these systems is that protein-ligand chemical affinities alone generally result in poor sensitivity to ligand concentration, endangering the system to error. Here, we examine the lipid-binding pleckstrin homology and Tec homology (PH-TH) module of Brutons tyrosine kinase (Btk) Using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) and membrane-binding kinetic measurements, we identify a self-contained phosphatidylinositol (3,4,5)-trisphosphate (PIP3) sensing mechanism that achieves switch-like sensitivity to PIP3 levels, surpassing the intrinsic affinity discrimination of PIP3:PH binding. This mechanism employs multiple PIP3 binding as well as dimerization of Btk on the membrane surface. Mutational studies in live cells confirm that this mechanism is critical for activation of Btk in vivo. These results demonstrate how a single protein module can institute a minimalist coincidence detection mechanism to achieve high-precision discrimination of ligand concentration.

biophysics↗

bioRxiv2018

Deep mutational analysis reveals functional trade-offs in the sequences of EGFR autophosphorylation sites

Upon activation, the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) phosphorylates tyrosine residues in its cytoplasmic tail, which triggers the binding of Src Homology 2 (SH2) and Phosphotyrosine Binding (PTB) domains and initiates downstream signaling. The sequences flanking the tyrosine residues (referred to as phosphosites) must be compatible with phosphorylation by the EGFR kinase domain and the recruitment of adapter proteins, while minimizing phosphorylation that would reduce the fidelity of signal transmission. In order to understand how phosphosite sequences encode these functions within a small set of residues, we carried out high-throughput mutational analysis of three phosphosite sequences in the EGFR tail. We used bacterial surface-display of peptides, coupled with deep sequencing, to monitor phosphorylation efficiency and the binding of the SH2 and PTB domains of the adapter proteins Grb2 and Shc1, respectively. We found that the sequences of phosphosites in the EGFR tail are restricted to a subset of the range of sequences that can be phosphorylated efficiently by EGFR. Although efficient phosphorylation by EGFR can occur with either acidic or large hydrophobic residues at the -1 position with respect to the tyrosine, hydrophobic residues are generally excluded from this position in tail sequences. The mutational data suggest that this restriction results in weaker binding to adapter proteins, but also disfavors phosphorylation by the cytoplasmic tyrosine kinases c-Src and c-Abl. Our results show how EGFR-family phosphosites achieve a trade-off between minimizing off-pathway phosphorylation while maintaining the ability to recruit the diverse complement of effectors required for downstream pathway activation.

biochemistry↗

bioRxiv2018

Fine-tuning of substrate preferences of the Src-family kinase Lck revealed through a high-throughput specificity screen

To obtain a comprehensive map of the intrinsic specificities of tyrosine kinase domains, we developed a high-throughput method that uses bacterial surface-display and next-generation sequencing to analyze the specificity of any tyrosine kinase against a library of thousands of peptides derived from human tyrosine phosphorylation sites. Using this approach, we identified a difference in the electrostatic recognition of substrates between the cytoplasmic Src-family tyrosine kinases Lck and c-Src. This divergence likely reflects the specialization of Lck to act in concert with the tyrosine kinase ZAP-70 in T cell receptor signaling. The current understanding of substrate recognition by tyrosine kinases emphasizes the role of localization by non-catalytic domains, but our results point to the importance of direct recognition at the kinase active site in fine-tuning specificity. Our method provides a simple approach that leverages next-generation sequencing to readily map the specificity of any tyrosine kinase at the proteome level.

biochemistry↗