The identification and characterization of scaffold and targeting proteins of the ERK/MAP kinase pathway is important to understand the function and intracellular organization of this pathway. The F-actin binding protein leukocyte-specific protein 1 (LSP1) binds to PKCβI and expression of B-LSP1, an LSP1 truncate containing the PKCβI binding residues, inhibits anti-IgM-induced translocation of PKCβI to the plasma membrane and anti-IgM-induced activation of ERK2. To understand the role of LSP1 in the regulation of PKCβI-dependent ERK2 activation, we investigated whether LSP1 interacts with ERK/MAP kinase pathway components and targets these proteins to the actin cytoskeleton. We show that LSP1 associates with the ERK scaffold protein KSR and with MEK1 and ERK2. LSP1-associated MEK1 is activated by anti-IgM treatment and this activation is inhibited by expression of B-LSP1, suggesting that the activation of LSP1-associated MEK1 is PKCβI dependent. Confocal microscopy showed that LSP1 targets KSR, MEK1 and ERK2 to peripheral actin filaments. Thus our data show that LSP1 is a cytoskeletal targeting protein for the ERK/MAP kinase pathway and support a model in which MEK1 and ERK2 are organized in a cytoskeletal signaling complex together with KSR, PKCβI and LSP1 and are activated by anti-IgM in a PKCβI-dependent manner.

The leukocyte specific protein 1 or LSP1 is a multi functional protein involved in such divers biological processes as the regulation of neutrophil motility, chemotaxis, adhesion and membrane immunoglobulin M (mIgM) mediated apoptosis of B-lymphocytes. The 330-amino-acid mouse LSP1 protein contains a high-affinity F-actin binding site and in intact cells localizes to the F-actin filament containing cytoskeleton. Here we use a high-speed F-actin co sedimentation assay and transfection experiments in the LSP1- T-lymphoma cell line BW5147 to show that LSP1 interacts with F-actin and the cytoskeleton through residues downstream of amino acid residue 230. We then designed a novel cell-free cytoskeleton binding assay in which a set of GST-LSP1 fusion proteins are allowed to bind to the cytoskeleton in NP-40 soluble lysates of BW5147 cells and are recovered in the low-speed detergent insoluble pellet. Using this assay the cytoskeleton binding site of mouse LSP1 maps to the 300-330 interval. These results will allow the design of LSP1 mutants that do not bind to the cytoskeleton to determine the importance of LSP1 cytoskeleton binding for the diverse functions of LSP1.