L04 - Cell Signalling & Cancer Flashcards
How many times do receptor tyrosine kinases span the membrane?
Once
What is the function of the tyrosine-kinase (intracellular) domain of a tyrosine kinase receptor?
To phosphorylate tyrosine residues on target proteins
Which class of receptors trigger the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) and phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase (PI3K) pathways?
Tyrosine kinase receptors
Describe the action of kinases.
Kinases catalyse the transfer of the terminal phosphate group of ATP to specific serine (Ser), threonine (Thr) or tyrosine (Tyr) residues on target proteins
What is the effect of phosphorylation on target molecules?
Usually activation, but sometimes inhibition
Describe the action of phosphatases.
Phosphatases cleave a phosphate group from the serine, threonine or tyrosine residues on target molecules
Upon binding to a ligand, what conformational change occurs in a tyrosine kinase receptor?
Why is this important?
- Dimerisation of two receptor molecules, known as homodimerisation
- This enables kinase domains of the neighbouring receptor molecules to cross-phosphorylate each other on multiple tyrosine residues (autophosphorylation)
- This creates high affinity binding sites for many proteins e.g. Grb-2 & PI 3-kinase
What is the outcome of the MAPK pathway?
Cell proliferation
Give a brief overview of the MAPK pathway.
1 - Signalling molecule
2 - Tyrosine kinase receptor
3 - Grb-2
4 - Sos
5 - Ras
6 - Raf
7 - Mek
8 - Erk
9 - Cell growth/proliferation
In the MAPK pathway, what is the function of Grb-2?
Which domains are important for its function?
- It acts as an adaptor protein using its SH2 and SH3 domains:
- SH2 recognises specific phosphorylated tyrosine residues on RTKs and binds to the high affinity binding site of a dimerised tyrosine kinase receptor
- SH3 binds to a motif in Sos proteins. Binding to SH3 enables Sos to recruit and activate Ras protein
What is Ras protein and how is it activated?
- A small G-protein with GTPase activity bound to the plasma membrane by a covalently attached lipid group
- Sos stimulates the exchange of GDP for GTP in Ras to activate Ras
To which class of proteins does Sos belong?
Guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs)
What is the effect of GTPase-activating proteins (GAPs) on activated Ras?
- They inactivate ras by stimulating its GTPase activity, which cleaves a phosphate group from GTP to form GDP
- This terminates the signalling event
What is the role of Ras in the MAPK pathway?
It activates Raf by inducing a conformational change, localised at the cell membrane
What is Raf and what is its function?
- A serine threonine kinase
- It phosphorylates Mek