Evolution of Src Homology 2 (SH2) Domain to Recognize Sulfotyrosine

Role of two modules controlling the interaction between SKAP1 and SRC kinases comparison with SKAP2 architecture and consequences for evolution

SRC kinase associated phosphoprotein 1 (SKAP1), an adaptor for protein assembly, plays an important role in the immune system such as stabilizing immune synapses. Understanding how these functions are controlled at the level of the protein-protein interactions is necessary to describe these processes and to develop therapeutics. Here, we dissected the SKAP1 modular organization to recognize SRC kinases and compared it to that of its paralog SRC kinase associated phosphoprotein 2 (SKAP2). Different conserved motifs common to either both proteins or specific to SKAP2 were found using this comparison. Two modules harboring different binding properties between SKAP1 and SKAP2 were identified: one composed of two conserved motifs located in the second interdomain interacting at least with the SH2 domain of SRC kinases and a second one composed of the DIM domain modulated by the SH3 domain and the activation of SRC kinases. This work suggests a convergent evolution of the binding properties of some SRC kinases interacting specifically with either SKAP1 or SKAP2.

Uncommon posttranslational modifications in proteomics: ADP-ribosylation, tyrosine nitration, and tyrosine sulfation

Posttranslational modifications (PTMs) are covalent modifications of proteins that modulate the structure and functions of proteins and regulate biological processes. The development of various mass spectrometry-based proteomics workflows has facilitated the identification of hundreds of PTMs and aided the understanding of biological significance in a high throughput manner. Improvements in sample preparation and PTM enrichment techniques, instrumentation for liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS), and advanced data analysis tools enhance the specificity and sensitivity of PTM identification. Highly prevalent PTMs like phosphorylation, glycosylation, acetylation, ubiquitinylation, and methylation are extensively studied. However, the functions and impact of less abundant PTMs are not as well understood and underscore the need for analytical methods that aim to characterize these PTMs. This review focuses on the advancement and analytical challenges associated with the characterization of three less common but biologically relevant PTMs, specifically, adenosine diphosphate-ribosylation, tyrosine sulfation, and tyrosine nitration. The advantages and disadvantages of various enrichment, separation, and MS/MS techniques utilized to identify and localize these PTMs are described.

Engineering SH2 Domains with Tailored Specificities and Affinities

The Src Homology 2 (SH2) domain is an emerging biotechnology with applications in basic science, drug discovery, and even diagnostics. The SH2 domains rapid uptake into different areas of research is a direct result of the wealth of information generated on its biochemical, biological, and biophysical role in mammalian cell biology. Functionally, the SH2 domain binds and recognizes specific phosphotyrosine (pTyr) residues in the cell to mediate protein-protein interactions (PPIs) that govern signal transduction networks. These signal transduction networks are responsible for relaying growth and stress state signals to the cell's nucleus, ultimately effecting a change in cell biology. Protein engineers have been able to increase the affinity of SH2 domains for pTyr while also tailoring the domains' specificity to unique amino acid sequences flanking the pTyr residue. In this way, it has been possible to develop unique SH2 variants for use in affinity-purification coupled to mass spectrometry (AP-MS) experiments, microscopy, or even synthetic biology. This chapter outlines methods to tailor the affinity and specificity of virtually any human SH2 domain using a combination of rational engineering and phage-display approaches.

Engineering of SH2 Domains for the Recognition of Protein Tyrosine O-Sulfation Sites

Protein engineering has brought advances to industrial processes, biomaterials, nanotechnology, biosensors, and biomedical applications. This chapter will focus on the engineering of Src Homology 2 domains (SH2) to act as an antibody mimetic for the recognition of sulfotyrosine-containing peptides or proteins. In comparison to anti-sulfotyrosine antibodies, SH2 mutants have much smaller size and can be heterologously expressed and purified in large quantity at low cost. This chapter will describe the use of phage display to identify a sulfotyrosine-binding SH2 mutant and the subsequent enrichment of sulfotyrosine-containing peptides in complex biological samples.

Sulfotyrosine residues: interaction specificity determinants for extracellular protein-protein interactions

Tyrosine sulfation, a post-translational modification, can determine and often enhance protein–protein interaction specificity. Sulfotyrosyl residues (sTyrs) are formed by the enzyme tyrosyl-protein sulfotransferase during protein maturation in the Golgi apparatus and most often occur singly or as a cluster within a six-residue span. With both negative charge and aromatic character, sTyr facilitates numerous atomic contacts as visualized in binding interface structural models, thus there is no discernible binding site consensus. Found exclusively in secreted proteins, in this review, we discuss the four broad sequence contexts in which sTyr has been observed: first, a solitary sTyr has been shown to be critical for diverse high-affinity interactions, such as between peptide hormones and their receptors, in both plants and animals. Second, sTyr clusters within structurally flexible anionic segments are essential for a variety of cellular processes, including coreceptor binding to the HIV-1 envelope spike protein during virus entry, chemokine interactions with receptors, and leukocyte rolling cell adhesion. Third, a subcategory of sTyr clusters is found in conserved acidic sequences termed hirudin-like motifs that enable proteins to interact with thrombin; consequently, many proven and potential therapeutic proteins derived from blood-consuming invertebrates depend on sTyrs for their activity. Finally, several proteins that interact with collagen or similar proteins contain one or more sTyrs within an acidic residue array. Refined methods to direct sTyr incorporation in peptides synthesized both in vitro and in vivo, together with continued advances in mass spectrometry and affinity detection, promise to accelerate discoveries of sTyr occurrence and function.

Engineering of Src Homology 2 Domain Leading to Sulfotyrosine Recognition With a High Affinity by Integrating a Distinctive Selection Theme and Next-Generation Sequencing

Tyrosine sulfation plays a vital role in various biochemical reactions. Although sulfated tyrosine (sTyr) has a similar structure to phosphotyrosine (pTyr), the number of available sTyr sites is significantly less than that of pTyr sites, mainly because of the lack of effective sTyr probes. A few sTyr binders were identified on the basis of structural similarity by engineering the pTyr-binding pocket of an Src Homology 2 (SH2) domain through phage selections against sTyr peptides. Nevertheless, they still interact with pTyr peptides with comparable affinity. This study aims to identify sTyr superbinders using the SH2 domain as a template. We created a distinctive phage selection scheme that separately covered selections against sTyr and pTyr peptides, followed by next-generation sequencing (NGS). After selections, phage pools showed strong enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) signal intensities for both modified peptides, indicating that the variants evolved with a high affinity for these peptides, which causes difficulty in identifying sTyr-specific binders. In contrast, NGS data from selected pools showed significant differences, suggesting the enrichment of sTyr-specific variants during selections. Accordingly, we obtained the sTyr features based on NGS data analysis and prioritized a few potential sTyr binders. The variant SH2-4 showed a stronger affinity for sTyr than pTyr and was superior to previous sTyr binders as measured by the Biolayer Interferometry assay. In summary, we described the strategy of integrating NGS data mining with a novel selection scheme to identify sTyr superbinders.

Engineering of a Small Protein Scaffold To Recognize Sulfotyrosine with High Specificity

Protein tyrosine O-sulfation is an essential post-translational modification required for effective biological processes such as hemostasis, inflammatory response, and visual phototransduction. Because of its unstable nature under mass spectrometry conditions and residing on low-abundance cell surface proteins, sulfated tyrosine (sulfotyrosine) residues are difficult to detect or analyze. Enrichment of sulfotyrosine-containing proteins (sulfoproteins) from complex biological samples are typically required before analysis. In this work, we seek to engineer the phosphotyrosine binding pocket of a Src Homology 2 (SH2) domain to act as an antisulfotyrosine antibody mimic. Using tailored selection schemes, several SH2 mutants are identified with high affinity and specificity to sulfotyrosine. Further molecular docking simulations highlight potential mechanisms supporting observed characteristics of these SH2 mutants. Utilities of the evolved SH2 mutants were demonstrated by the detection and enrichment of sulfoproteins.

Targeting Phosphotyrosine in Native Proteins with Conditional, Bispecific Antibody Traps

Engineering sequence-specific antibodies (Abs) against phosphotyrosine (pY) motifs embedded in folded polypeptides remains highly challenging because of the stringent requirement for simultaneous recognition of the pY motif and the surrounding folded protein epitope. Here, we present a method named phosphotyrosine Targeting by Recombinant Ab Pair, or pY-TRAP, for in vitro engineering of binders for native pY proteins. Specifically, we create the pY protein by unnatural amino acid misincorporation, mutagenize a universal pY-binding Ab to create a first binder B1 for the pY motif on the pY protein, and then select against the B1-pY protein complex for a second binder B2 that recognizes the composite epitope of B1 and the pY-containing protein complex. We applied pY-TRAP to create highly specific binders to folded Ub-pY59, a rarely studied Ub phosphoform exclusively observed in cancerous tissues, and ZAP70-pY248, a kinase phosphoform regulated in feedback signaling pathways in T cells. The pY-TRAPs do not have detectable binding to wild-type proteins or to other pY peptides or proteins tested. This pY-TRAP approach serves as a generalizable method for engineering sequence-specific Ab binders to native pY proteins.

Engineering of a sulfotyrosine-recognizing small protein scaffold for the study of protein tyrosine O-sulfation

Protein tyrosine O-sulfation is considered as one of the most common types of posttranslational modification of tyrosine in nature. The introduction of a negatively charged sulfate group plays crucial roles in extracellular biomolecular interactions that dictate various cellular processes, including cell adhesion, leukocyte trafficking, hormone activities, and immune responses. Despite substantial advances in our knowledge about protein tyrosine O-sulfation in recent years, our understanding of its biological significance is still in its infancy. This is largely hindered by a chronic lack of suitable biochemical tools. We seek to meet this challenge by engineering a small protein scaffold that can recognize sulfated tyrosine (sulfotyrosine) residues with high affinity. In this chapter, we describe the directed evolution of a Src Homology 2 (SH2) domain to recognize sulfotyrosine. In the first part, the design strategy for the phage display of SH2 variants is discussed. In the second part, the techniques required for phage propagation and selection are described. The evolved SH2 variants are characterized and validated in vitro through fluorescence polarization assays. Finally, the evolved SH2 domain mutants are applied to the visualization of sulfated proteins on the cell surface.

CCR7 Sulfotyrosine Enhances CCL21 Binding

Chemokines are secreted proteins that direct the migration of immune cells and are involved in numerous disease states. For example, CCL21 (CC chemokine ligand 21) and CCL19 (CC chemokine ligand 19) recruit antigen-presenting dendritic cells and naïve T-cells to the lymph nodes and are thought to play a role in lymph node metastasis of CCR7 (CC chemokine receptor 7)-expressing cancer cells. For many chemokine receptors, N-terminal posttranslational modifications, particularly the sulfation of tyrosine residues, increases the affinity for chemokine ligands and may contribute to receptor ligand bias. Chemokine sulfotyrosine (sY) binding sites are also potential targets for drug development. In light of the structural similarity between sulfotyrosine and phosphotyrosine (pY), the interactions of CCL21 with peptide fragments of CCR7 containing tyrosine, pY, or sY were compared using protein NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) spectroscopy in this study. Various N-terminal CCR7 peptides maintain binding site specificity with Y8-, pY8-, or sY8-containing peptides binding near the α-helix, while Y17-, pY17-, and sY17-containing peptides bind near the N-loop and β3-stand of CCL21. All modified CCR7 peptides showed enhanced binding affinity to CCL21, with sY having the largest effect.

Novel Fluorescence-Based Biosensors Incorporating Unnatural Amino Acids

Fluorescent proteins of different colors are useful probes to study protein structure and function, and to investigate cellular events and conditions. Large efforts have focused on engineering new properties into fluorescent proteins via rational design and directed evolution. In addition to applications in imaging of protein expression level and subcellular localization, fluorescent proteins have been increasingly engineered to act as biosensors to track concentrations of small-molecule metabolites, enzyme activities, and protein conformational changes in living cells. Unlike small-molecule fluorescence biosensors, fluorescent proteins are genetically encodable, and thus can be expressed inside living cells. Attachment of organelle-specific signals to the proteins allows their localization to be specified. Recently, a new class of fluorescent protein biosensors has been developed to include unnatural amino acids as the sensing element. The unique chemical and physical properties of the unnatural amino acids enable sensor designs that cannot be realized by using the standard genetic code with the 20 canonical amino acids. In this chapter, we detail the general procedure for the genetic incorporation of unnatural amino acids. We further present two protocols for the in vitro and in vivo detection of hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) using a fluorescent protein biosensor that contains an unnatural amino acid, p-boronophenylalanine.