p56lck interactions accelerate autophosphorylation and enhance activity toward exogenous substrates

p56lck, which is a lymphoid-restricted tyrosine kinase, plays a significant role both in activation of mature T lymphocytes and in T cell development. Recombinant human p56lck was expressed in a baculovirus system and purified to > 95% purity. Purified recombinant p56lck was found to have enzymatic characteristics indistinguishable from those of the native enzyme expressed in the Jurkat human T lymphocytic cell line. The comparisons of recombinant and native p56lck were performed using an assay in which the enzyme was immobilized with antibodies onto the wells of a microtiter plate, enabling in situ purification of the native enzyme. Further characterization of the purified recombinant p56lck revealed significantly different enzyme concentration curves for peptide phosphorylation by immobilized and soluble p56lck. In particular, there was very low activity at low concentrations of enzyme assayed in solution. The activity at low enzyme concentrations could be substantially increased by preincubation of high concentrations of enzyme with ATP prior to dilution for the peptide phosphorylation reaction. We examined the relationship between autophosphorylation and activation for peptide phosphorylation. As for peptide phosphorylation, nonlinear enzyme concentration curves were also observed for autophosphorylation in solution, with very low levels of autophosphorylation at low enzyme concentrations. There was a correlation between the enzyme concentration dependency for autophosphorylation and for preincubation with ATP for maximal enhancement of subsequent peptide phosphorylation. The results suggest that autophosphorylation activates p56lck for phosphorylation of exogenous substrates and that high enzyme concentrations accelerate intermolecular autophosphorylation and enzyme activation.

High level expression and purification of the enzymatically active cytoplasmic region of human CD45 phosphatase from yeast

The cytoplasmic region of human CD45 corresponding to residues 584-1281 was inserted downstream of the alcohol dehydrogenase promoter and transfected into a haploid strain of yeast. Expression of recombinant CD45 in yeast reached as high as 5% of the soluble protein. Following removal of cellular debris by centrifugation and an ammonium sulfate precipitation step, the enzyme was purified using phenyl-Sepharose chromatography, preparative gel filtration, Mono Q anion exchange chromatography and a final analytical gel filtration step. Enzymatically active material with a purity of > or = 98% was obtained with a yield approaching 50%. The final product gave a Km of 5.5 mM and a Vmax of 87.5 U/mg with p-nitrophenylphosphate and a Km and Vmax of 0.167 mM and 185 U/mg, respectively, with a phosphotyrosine peptide. The native enzyme purified from Jurkat cells showed comparable Kms with both substrates to the recombinant enzyme but displayed substantially lower Vmax values for both substrates.

Cloning, expression, and catalytic mechanism of the low molecular weight phosphotyrosyl protein phosphatase from bovine heart

The first representative of a group of mammalian, low molecular weight phosphotyrosyl protein phosphatases was cloned, sequenced and expressed in Escherichia coli. Using a 61-mer oligonucleotide probe based on the amino acid sequence of the purified enzyme, several overlapping cDNA clones were isolated from a bovine heart cDNA library. A full-length clone was obtained consisting of a 27-bp 5' noncoding region, an open reading frame encoding the expected 157 amino acid protein, and an extensive 3' nontranslated sequence. The identification of the clone as full length was consistent with results obtained in mRNA blotting experiments using poly(A)+ mRNA from bovine heart. The coding sequence was placed downstream of a bacteriophage T7 promoter, and protein was expressed in E. coli. The expressed enzyme was soluble, and catalytically active and was readily isolated and purified. The recombinant protein had the expected Mr of 18,000 (estimated by SDS-PAGE), and it showed cross-reactivity with antisera that had been raised against both the bovine heart and the human placenta enzymes. The amino acid sequence of the N-terminal region of the expressed protein showed that methionine had been removed, resulting in a sequence identical to that of the enzyme isolated from the bovine tissue, with the exception that the N-terminal alanine of the protein from tissue is acetylated. A kinetically competent phosphoenzyme intermediate was trapped from a phosphatase-catalyzed reaction. Using 31P NMR, the covalent intermediate was identified as a cysteinyl phosphate. By analogy with the nomenclature used for serine esterases, these enzymes may be called cysteine phosphatases.