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Mol. Cell. Biol., 02 1995, 711-722, Vol 15, No. 2
M Bergman, V Joukov, I Virtanen and K Alitalo
The C-terminal Src kinase p50csk phosphorylates Src family tyrosine kinases
and down-regulates their activity in vitro. To gain insight into the
cellular functions of this potentially antioncogenic enzyme, we have
overexpressed the csk cDNA by using an inducible promoter in HeLa cells.
Despite some differences in basal Src activity in the clones analyzed, Src
activity was not significantly suppressed, while the amount of p50csk and
Csk activity increased at least 10-fold during 3 days of induction.
Immunofluorescence for the induced p50csk was localized in the cytoplasm
and distinctly in focal adhesions, in which the amount of phosphotyrosine
containing proteins was also increased. Point and deletion mutagenesis
experiments showed that localization in focal adhesions was dependent on
the SH2 and SH3 domains of Csk but not on its catalytic activity. Csk
formed a complex with the focal adhesion protein paxillin in cells, and its
SH2 domain was shown to interact with pp125FAK and paxillin in vitro. After
Csk induction, the cells became spherical and more loosely attached to the
culture substratum, and the alpha v beta 5 integrin complex (vitronectin
receptor) of focal adhesions was redistributed to a novel type of structure
consisting of punctate plaques on the ventral cell surface. These
phenotypic changes occurred in several clones analyzed and were totally
reversible when Csk was switched off, but they did not occur in cells
overexpressing the catalytically inactive Csk R-222 mutant or luciferase.
Our results thus show that a fraction of cellular Csk is targeted to focal
adhesions via its SH2 and SH3 domains, probably interacting with
tyrosyl-phosphorylated focal adhesion proteins. They also suggest that Csk
is involved in the regulation of integrins controlling cell attachment and
shape.
Copyright © 1995, American Society for Microbiology
Overexpressed Csk tyrosine kinase is localized in focal adhesions, causes reorganization of alpha v beta 5 integrin, and interferes with HeLa cell spreading
Department of Pathology, University of Helsinki, Finland.
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