Reversible tyrosine phosphorylation plays a crucial role in signal transduction, regulating many biological functions including proliferation, differentiation, and motility. The comprehensive characterization of the tyrosine phosphorylation state of a cell is of great interest for understanding the mechanisms that underlie signaling; however, current methods for analyzing tyrosinephosphorylated proteins in crude protein extracts provide limited information, or are laborious and require relatively large amounts of protein. We have developed a simple, rapid, and flexible competitive binding assay based on the far-Western blot technique, in which a battery of Src homology 2 domain probes is used to detect patterns of specific tyrosine-phosphorylated sites. We demonstrate that distinct profiles of tyrosine phosphorylation can be detected with high sensitivity and specificity and low background. This proteomic approach can be used to rapidly profile the global tyrosine phosphorylation state of any cell of interest and has obvious applications as a molecular diagnostic tool, for example in the classification of tumors. The general strategy we describe here is not limited to Src homology 2 domains and could be used to profile the binding sites for any class of protein interaction domain.T he process of signal transduction is essential for cellular functions such as proliferation, differentiation, cytoskeletal organization, and cell survival, and aberrant signaling is a hallmark of many diseases (1-3). Specific protein-protein interactions play a key role in this process by mediating the assembly of complexes or relocalization of proteins in response to signals (4). Reversible tyrosine phosphorylation is an early step in the transduction of many types of signals in multicellular organisms. Signaling proteins phosphorylated on tyrosine residues are specifically recognized by Src Homology 2 (SH2) modular protein interaction domains; thus, creation of SH2 binding sites serves to transmit a signal by altering the local concentrations of proteins containing SH2 domains and bringing them into contact with new partners or substrates (5, 6). One way in which we can define the signaling state of the cell, therefore, is by the presence or absence of binding sites for various SH2 domains, the subcellular localization of those sites, and the ensemble of proteins that are available to bind to those sites. SH2 domains, which are found in a wide variety of signaling proteins, consist of Ϸ100 aa and can be separated from the original protein without loss of function (7). Their ligand binding surfaces specifically interact with phosphotyrosine (PTyr) in the context of short linear sequence motifs. The specificity of the interaction is determined by the amino acid composition of the core binding site, with the general motif pYxx⌿ (where pY stands for PTyr, ⌿ for hydrophobic amino acids, and x for selected amino acids important for specific interaction) (8, 9). The affinities for SH2 domain-ligand interactions are moderate, in the range o...