To obtain a global picture of how protein phosphatases are involved in receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) signaling, we mapped the RTK-phosphatase interactome. Analyses of selected interactions revealed detailed mechanisms of their actions. This study provides new knowledge to better understand cancer development and to identify novel therapeutic targets. Receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs) receive multiple extracellular signals, and process and transmit them into intracellular space. They operate through the activation of their tyrosine kinase domains upon ligand engagement, and the following tyrosine phosphorylation. These phosphorylated tyrosines recruit signaling molecules containing SRC homology 2 (SH2) or phosphotyrosine-binding (PTB) domains and relay the signal to downstream pathways.
KEYWORDS1 Malfunction of RTKs is involved in several disorders. Self-sufficient activation derived from overexpression or mutation of RTKs or related regulated molecules is one of the driving causes of various types of cancer. In addition, mutations in RTKs also contribute to resistance to anti-cancer drugs.Protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPs) are a group of enzymes that remove phosphate from tyrosine residues and thereby are the major means of terminating RTK signal and maintaining control of RTK signaling. An oversimplified model describes that PTPs function as signal erasers. However, accumulating data have demonstrated that PTPs behave in a complex manner; besides terminating signals, some PTPs actually potentiate RTK signaling, and some play controversial roles depending on different cellular and RTK context. In addition to tyrosine phosphorylation, serine/theronine phosphorylation also plays certain roles in fine-tuning RTK signaling, although most of these roles are unknown. Therefore, theoretically all protein phosphatases, including protein Ser/Thr phosphatases (PSPs), are involved in RTK signaling.To fully understand RTK function, it is necessary to comprehensively examine the RTK-phosphatase relationship. We aimed to tackle this problem from the perspective of proteinprotein interaction (PPI).2,3 However, the fact that RTKs are integral transmembrane proteins makes it extremely difficult to study RTK-phosphatase interactions in a systems fashion using traditional PPI methods, due to the special physical and chemical features of the membrane environment. To overcome this problem, we developed a unique Membrane Yeast Two-Hybrid (MYTH) system to study membrane protein PPIs (Fig. 1A), which utilizes split ubiquitin to sense PPIs. 4 It should be noted that the MYTH system detects PPIs in a yeast environment instead of in mammalian cells for mammalian PPIs, but MYTH is still a valuable system since it maximally eliminates the interference of endogenous mammalian interactors and regulators. Recently, we also developed a mammalian version of MYTH, the Mammalian Membrane Two-Hybrid (MaMTH) system, to complement the MYTH assay. 5 We performed a RTK-phosphatase interactome screen using MYTH and MaMTH assays. 6 The MYTH ass...