Structural basis for the activation of PLC-γ isozymes by phosphorylation and cancer-associated mutations
Abstract
Direct activation of the human phospholipase C-g isozymes (PLC-g1, -g2) by tyrosine phosphorylation is fundamental to the control of diverse biological processes, including chemotaxis, platelet aggregation, and adaptive immunity. In turn, aberrant activation of PLC-g1 and PLC-g2 is implicated in inflammation, autoimmunity, and cancer. Although structures of isolated domains from PLC-g isozymes are available, these structures are insufficient to define how release of basal autoinhibition is coupled to phosphorylation-dependent enzyme activation. Here we describe the first high-resolution structure of a full-length PLC-g isozyme and use it to underpin a detailed model of their membrane-dependent regulation. Notably, an interlinked set of regulatory domains integrates basal autoinhibition, tyrosine kinase engagement, and additional scaffolding functions with the phosphorylation-dependent, allosteric control of phospholipase activation. The model also explains why mutant forms of the PLC-g isozymes found in several cancers have a wide spectrum of activities, and highlights how these activities are tuned during disease.
Data availability
Coordinates and structure factors for PLC-gamma1 are deposited in the Protein Data Bank under accession number 6PBC.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
National Institutes of Health (R01-GM057391)
- John Sondek
National Institutes of Health (R01-GM098894)
- Qisheng Zhang
- John Sondek
National Science Foundation (DGE-1650116)
- Edhriz Siraliev-Perez
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2019, Hajicek et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Metrics
-
- 8,931
- views
-
- 1,075
- downloads
-
- 54
- citations
Views, downloads and citations are aggregated across all versions of this paper published by eLife.
Download links
Downloads (link to download the article as PDF)
Open citations (links to open the citations from this article in various online reference manager services)
Cite this article (links to download the citations from this article in formats compatible with various reference manager tools)
Further reading
-
- Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
- Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine
Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) have great potential to be used as alternatives to embryonic stem cells (hESCs) in regenerative medicine and disease modelling. In this study, we characterise the proteomes of multiple hiPSC and hESC lines derived from independent donors and find that while they express a near-identical set of proteins, they show consistent quantitative differences in the abundance of a subset of proteins. hiPSCs have increased total protein content, while maintaining a comparable cell cycle profile to hESCs, with increased abundance of cytoplasmic and mitochondrial proteins required to sustain high growth rates, including nutrient transporters and metabolic proteins. Prominent changes detected in proteins involved in mitochondrial metabolism correlated with enhanced mitochondrial potential, shown using high-resolution respirometry. hiPSCs also produced higher levels of secreted proteins, including growth factors and proteins involved in the inhibition of the immune system. The data indicate that reprogramming of fibroblasts to hiPSCs produces important differences in cytoplasmic and mitochondrial proteins compared to hESCs, with consequences affecting growth and metabolism. This study improves our understanding of the molecular differences between hiPSCs and hESCs, with implications for potential risks and benefits for their use in future disease modelling and therapeutic applications.
-
- Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
In response to an ever-increasing demand of new small molecules therapeutics, numerous chemical and genetic tools have been developed to interrogate compound mechanism of action. Owing to its ability to approximate compound-dependent changes in thermal stability, the proteome-wide thermal shift assay has emerged as a powerful tool in this arsenal. The most recent iterations have drastically improved the overall efficiency of these assays, providing an opportunity to screen compounds at a previously unprecedented rate. Taking advantage of this advance, we quantified more than one million thermal stability measurements in response to multiple classes of therapeutic and tool compounds (96 compounds in living cells and 70 compounds in lysates). When interrogating the dataset as a whole, approximately 80% of compounds (with quantifiable targets) caused a significant change in the thermal stability of an annotated target. There was also a wealth of evidence portending off-target engagement despite the extensive use of the compounds in the laboratory and/or clinic. Finally, the combined application of cell- and lysate-based assays, aided in the classification of primary (direct ligand binding) and secondary (indirect) changes in thermal stability. Overall, this study highlights the value of these assays in the drug development process by affording an unbiased and reliable assessment of compound mechanism of action.