CD45 and a family of receptor-linked protein tyrosine phosphatases

Parallel synthesis of a library of bidentate protein tyrosine phosphatase inhibitors based on the alpha-ketoacid motif

Protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPases) regulate intracellular signal transduction pathways by controlling the level of tyrosine phosphorylation in cells. These enzymes play an important role in a variety of diseases including type II diabetes and infection by the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which is the causative agent of bubonic plague. This report describes the synthesis, using parallel solution-phase methods, of a library of 104 potential inhibitors of PTPases. The library members are based on the bis(aryl alpha-ketocarboxylic acid) motif that incorporates a carboxylic acid on the central benzene linker. This carboxylic acid was coupled with a variety of different aromatic amines through an amide linkage. The aromatic component of the resulting amides is designed to make contacts with residues that surround the active site of the PTPase. The library was screened against the Yersinia PTPase and PTP1B. Based upon the screening results, four members of the library were selected for further study. These four compounds were evaluated against the Yersinia PTPase, PTP1B, TCPTP, CD45, and LAR. Compound 14 has an IC(50) value of 590nM against PTP1B and is a reversible competitive inhibitor. This affinity represents a greater than 120-fold increase in potency over compound 2, the parent structure upon which the library was based. A second inhibitor, compound 12, has an IC(50) value of 240nM against the Yersinia PTPase. In general, the selectivity of the inhibitors for PTP1B was good compared to LAR, but modest when compared to TCPTP and CD45.

The phosphatase domains of LAR, CD45, and PTP1B: structural correlations with peptide-based inhibitors1

PTP1B is a cytosolic protein tyrosine phosphatase that is a regulator of the kinase activity of the insulin receptor; the two protein tyrosine phosphatases LAR and CD45 are receptor type phosphatases crucially important to cell function. LAR also is involved in regulation of the insulin receptor while CD45 is critical for T-cell activation. Although LAR and CD45 are both transmembrane phosphatases, these enzymes manifest their phosphatase activity through a catalytic cytosolic domain. We have utilized X-ray coordinates of related phosphatases (RPTPalpha and RPTPµ) and comparative protein modeling to obtain molecular models of the D1 catalytic domains of CD45 and LAR. The models were tested using established protocols and found to be comparable to low resolution X-ray structures. The structure obtained for LAR was compared with the recently reported X-ray structure. Both the CD45-D1 and LAR-D1 structures were then compared to and contrasted with PTP1B. The active site of pockets of the three enzymes were found to be very uniform in structure and charge distribution. Also, the gross surface topology around the active site was found to be somewhat similar for the 3 phosphatases. However, there were significant differences in surface topology, and, more importantly, large changes in surface charge distribution. The differences between the surface features of these enzymes provide an explanation for the selectivity of inhibition by a number of peptides.

A novel putative protein-tyrosine phosphatase contains a BRO1-like domain and suppresses Ha-ras-mediated transformation

To investigate a potential role of protein-tyrosine phosphatases (PTPases) in myocardial growth and signaling, a degenerate primer-based reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction approach was used to isolate cDNAs for proteins that contain a PTPase catalytic domain. Among the 16 cDNA clones isolated by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction from total neonatal rat cardiomyocyte RNA, one, designated PTP-TD14, was unique. Subsequent isolation and sequencing of a full-length PTP-TD14 cDNA confirmed that it encodes a novel 164-kDa protein, p164(PTP-TD14). The C-terminal region contains the PTP-like domain, whereas the N-terminal region shows no homology to any known mammalian protein. However, this region is homologous to a yeast protein, BRO1, that is involved in the mitogen-activated protein kinase signaling pathway. Like BRO1, p164(PTP-TD14) contains a proline-rich region with two putative SH3-domain binding sites. By Northern blot analysis, PTP-TD14 is expressed as a 5.3-kilobase pair transcript, not only in neonatal heart but also in many adult rat tissues. When expressed in either COS-7 or NIH-3T3 cells, p164(PTP-TD14) localizes to the cytoplasm in association with vesicle-like structures. Expression of p164(PTP-TD14) in NIH-3T3 cells inhibits Ha-ras-mediated transformation more than 3-fold. This inhibitory activity is localized to the C-terminal PTPase homology domain, since no inhibition of Ha-ras-mediated focus formation was observed with a PTP-TD14 mutant, in which the putative catalytic activity was presumably inactivated by a point mutation. These findings indicate that PTP-TD14 encodes a novel protein that may be critically involved in regulating Ha-ras-dependent cell growth.

Molecular cloning and expression of a unique rabbit osteoclastic phosphotyrosyl phosphatase

Tyrosyl phosphorylation plays an important regulatory role in osteoclast formation and activity. Phosphotyrosyl phosphatases (PTPs), in addition to tyrosyl kinases, are key determinants of intracellular tyrosyl phosphorylation levels. To identify the PTP that might play an important regulatory role in osteoclasts, we sought to clone an osteoclast-specific PTP. A putative full-length clone encoding a unique PTP (referred to as PTP-oc) was isolated from a 10-day-old rabbit osteoclastic cDNA library and sequenced. A single open reading frame predicts a protein with 405 amino acid residues containing a putative extracellular domain, a single transmembrane region, and an intracellular portion. PTP-oc is structurally unique in that, unlike most known transmembrane PTPs, it has a short extracellular region (eight residues), lacks a signal peptide proximal to the N-terminus, and contains only a single 'PTP catalytic domain'. The PTP catalytic domain shows 45-50% sequence identity with the catalytic domain of human HPTP beta and with the first catalytic domain of LCA. The PTP-oc gene exists as a single copy in the rabbit genome. The corresponding mRNA (3.8 kb) is expressed in osteoclasts but not in other bone-derived cells (e.g. osteoblasts and stromal cells). The 3.8 kb PTP-oc mRNA transcript was also expressed in the rabbit brain, kidney and spleen. However, the brain and kidney, but not osteoclasts or spleen, also expressed a larger transcript (6.5 kb). The PTP catalytic domain of PTP-oc was expressed as a GST-cPTP-oc fusion protein. In vitro phosphatase assays indicated that the purified fusion protein exhibited phosphatase activities at neutral pH values toward p-nitrophenyl phosphate, phosphotyrosyl Raytide, and phosphotyrosyl histone, whereas it had no appreciable activity toward phosphoseryl casein. In summary, we have: (a) cloned and sequenced the putative full-length cDNA of a unique PTP (PTP-oc) from rabbit osteoclasts; (b) shown that the mature 3.8 kb PTP-oc mRNA was expressed primarily in osteoclasts and the spleen; and (c) shown that the PTP-oc fusion protein exhibited a phosphotyrosine-specific phosphatase activity. In conclusion, PTP-oc represents a structurally unique subfamily of transmembrane PTPs.

Cloning and expression of protein tyrosine phosphatase-like protein derived from a rat pheochromocytoma cell line

A novel protein [designated protein tyrosine phosphatase-like protein (PTPLP)] which is distantly related to receptor-type protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTPases) was cloned from a rat pheochromocytoma cell line. The PTPLP was detected exclusively in the brain. Overexpression of the PTPLP decreased the basal PTPase activity of COS-7 cells for Raytide. These results suggest that PTPLP may function as a negative regulator of PTPases in neuronal tissues.