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Receptor-Mediated Phagocytosis by Transforming Mutants of Cbl1
Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA 19104
| Abstract |
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R plays an important role in
host defense. The molecular events involved in this process have not
been completely defined. The adapter protein Cbl has been implicated in
Fc
R signaling, but the function of Cbl in phagocytosis is unknown.
Here we show that overexpression of the transforming mutants of Cbl,
Cbl-70Z, and v-Cbl, but not wild-type (wt) Cbl, enhance phagocytosis
mediated by Fc
R in COS cells. Cbl-70Z, but not Cbl-wt, also enhanced
Fc
R-mediated phagocytosis in P388D1 murine macrophage cells. Cbl-70Z
did not affect tyrosine phosphorylation or in vitro kinase activity of
Syk, indicating that Syk may not be the direct target of Cbl-70Z in the
enhancement of phagocytosis. A point mutation (G306E) in the
phosphotyrosine domain of Cbl-70Z, as well as a C-terminal 67-aa
deletion, partially abolished the enhancing effect on Fc
R-mediated
phagocytosis. A double mutant of Cbl-70Z containing both the G306E
mutation and the C-terminal deletion completely lacked the ability to
enhance phagocytosis. Thus, both the phosphotyrosine binding domain and
the carboxyl-terminal tail were required for optimal enhancement of
phagocytosis by Cbl-70Z. Functional phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase was
required for Cbl-70Z to enhance phagocytosis, since wortmannin, a
phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase inhibitor, inhibited Fc
R-mediated
phagocytosis in the presence of Cbl-70Z. These studies demonstrate that
mutants of Cbl can modulate the phagocytic pathway mediated by Fc
R
and imply a functional involvement of c-Cbl in Fc
receptor-mediated
phagocytosis. | Introduction |
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R,
which bind the constant region (Fc) of IgG molecules, play an important
role in immune reactions (1, 2). One of their functions in
cells of the monocyte/macrophage lineage is the induction of
phagocytosis of foreign substances coated with IgG. The pathway(s)
through which Fc
R mediate phagocytosis are not completely defined.
Recent evidence indicates that Syk protein tyrosine kinase is essential
for phagocytosis by Fc
R. We have observed that overexpression of Syk
kinase enhances phagocytosis by Fc
RI and Fc
RIIIA in COS cells and
that the inhibition of Syk kinase by antisense oligodeoxynucleotides
abrogates Fc
R phagocytosis of Ab-coated erythrocytes
(EA)3 by
monocytes/macrophages (3, 4, 5). Furthermore, studies using
macrophages from Syk-deficient mice confirm that Syk is essential for
Fc
R-mediated phagocytosis (6, 7). The importance of Syk
in phagocytosis and its role as a protein kinase prompted us to
hypothesize that some of the substrates that are phosphorylated by Syk
may also play a role in phagocytosis by Fc
R.
There is evidence that the adapter protein Cbl, the protein product of
the protooncogene c-cbl, is a substrate for the Syk family
protein tyrosine kinases (8, 9). The c-cbl gene
was first described as a cellular counterpart of a transforming
gene, v-cbl, of a murine Cas NS-1 retrovirus
(10). c-Cbl has been shown to be tyrosine
phosphorylated following the cross-linking of several cell surface
receptors including the platelet-derived growth factor receptor, the
TCR, the B cell receptors, and the FcR (9, 11, 12, 13). Recent
evidence suggests that c-Cbl may be a regulator of protein tyrosine
kinase(s) downstream of these receptors. For example, SLI-1, a
Caenorhabditis elegans Cbl homologue, functions as a
negative regulator of the LET-23 receptor protein tyrosine kinase
(14, 15). The demonstration (16) that c-Cbl
negatively regulates Syk kinase in signaling by Fc
RI in mast cells
supports this thesis. Also relevant is evidence that Cbl binds to
ZAP-70, another member of the Syk family of tyrosine kinases
(17, 18, 19). However, functional consequences of the binding
of Cbl to ZAP-70 have not been reported. Interestingly, transforming
mutants of Cbl, the 70Z/3 form of Cbl (Cbl-70Z) and the N-terminal
domain of Cbl (v-Cbl form), induce tyrosine phosphorylation in NIH-3T3
cells (19), suggesting that c-Cbl and its transforming
mutants can have opposing effects on protein tyrosine kinase pathways.
For Fc
R, receptor cross-linking induces tyrosine phosphorylation of
c-Cbl (9, 13) as well as the association of c-Cbl with
phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI-3K), Grb2, Shc, Syk, and Lyn
(9, 12, 20, 21). However, the role of Cbl in
Fc
R-mediated phagocytosis has not been studied.
To define the functional role of Cbl, we examined the effects of Cbl
and its mutant forms on phagocytosis mediated by Fc
R in transfected
COS-7 cells. We observed that transforming mutants of Cbl, but not
wild-type Cbl (Cbl-wt), enhance phagocytosis by Fc
R in COS cells.
For optimal enhancement of phagocytosis by Cbl-70Z, both the N-terminal
phosphotyrosine binding (PTB) domain and the C-terminal 67-aa stretch
were important. The enhancing effect of Cbl-70Z was dependent on an
intact PI-3K pathway. Our study demonstrates the modulation of Fc
R
function by Cbl mutants and suggests the involvement of Cbl in the
phagocytic pathway(s) mediated by Fc
R.
| Materials and Methods |
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COS-7 cells were obtained from American Tissue Culture Collection (Manassas, VA). Cells were cultured in DMEM (Life Technologies, Gaithersburg, MD) supplemented with L-glutamine (3 mM), penicillin (100 U/ml), streptomycin (100 µg/ml), and 10% FCS at 37°C with 5% CO2. Transient transfections were conducted using the DEAE-dextran method as described previously (4). Briefly, COS-7 cells were seeded to tissue culture plates the day before transfection. Cells were washed once with DMEM, then incubated with 4 µg/ml of plasmid DNA in DMEM containing 10% FCS, 1 mg/ml of DEAE-dextran, and 100 µM chloroquine for 4 h at 37°C. Following osmotic shock with 10% DMSO (Sigma, St. Louis, MO) in PBS for 90 s, cells were washed twice with DMEM, then cultured in fresh medium. Cells were subjected to analysis 48 h after transfection.
The murine macrophage cell line P388D1 was maintained in DMEM supplemented with L-glutamine (3 mM), penicillin (100 U/ml), streptomycin (100 µg/ml), 2-ME (50 µM), and 10% FCS. P388D1 cells were transfected with the aid of FuGENE 6 transfection reagent (Roche Molecular Biochemicals, Indianapolis, IN). Bulk transfectants were subjected to analysis following a selection with 800 µg/ml of G418 (Mediatech, Herndon, VA) for about 3 wk.
Preparation of Ab-coated EA and determination of phagocytosis
EA were prepared as previously described (3, 4, 5). Sheep RBC (Rockland, Gilbertsville, PA) were suspended in calcium- and magnesium-free PBS at 109/ml, then incubated at 37°C for 30 min after the addition of an equal volume of PBS containing the highest subagglutinating titer of rabbit anti-sheep RBC Ab (Cappel Laboratories, Cochranville, PA). COS-7 cells were incubated with 108 EA for 30 min at 37°C. For P388D1 cells, incubation was conducted in DMEM for 1 h. After vigorous washing to remove unbound EA, surface-bound EA were lysed by 30-s exposure to hypotonic buffer. Cells were stained with Wright-Giemsa and examined for internalized RBC by light microscopy. Results were expressed as a phagocytic index, the number of ingested erythrocytes per 100 cells. Statistical analysis used the Newman-Keuls multiple comparison test. A value of p < 0.05 was considered significant.
Flow cytometry
Cells were gently removed from the tissue culture plates and
incubated with anti-Fc
RI mAb 32.2, anti-Fc
RII mAb IV.3,
or anti-Fc
RIII mAb 3G8 for 30 min at 4°C. After two washes,
cells were incubated with FITC-conjugated goat anti-mouse
F(ab')2 IgG (TAGO, Burlingame, CA) for 30 min at
4°C, then washed twice. Isotype controls were used for all reactions.
For the analysis of intracellular protein, cells were fixed with 1%
paraformaldehyde in PBS and permeabilized in 0.1% Triton X-100 and 1%
paraformaldehyde in PBS at 4°C for 30 min before staining with Ab.
Fluorescence was measured on a FACStar or a FACScan cytometer (Becton
Dickinson, Mountain View, CA).
Construction of recombinant plasmids
Expression vectors for Fc
RI, Fc
RIIA, Fc
RIIIA
, and
the FcR
subunit were described previously (22, 23, 24). The
cDNA for the single chain chimeric Fc
receptor, Fc
RI-
-
, was
constructed by PCR. Fc
RI-
-
is comprised of the extracellular
domain of Fc
RI (residues 1292) and the transmembrane and
cytoplasmic domains of the human FcR
subunit (residues 2486). The
cDNA for Syk kinase was a gift from Dr. C. Couture (McGill University,
Montreal, Canada). The cDNA for Cbl-wt and Cbl-70Z with a N-terminal
hemagglutinin (HA) epitope were provided by Dr. L. E. Samelson
(National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD) and were in the pSXSR
expression vector (25). The cDNA for v-Cbl and the G306E
mutants of c-Cbl, Cbl-70Z, and v-Cbl were prepared by PCR and cloned
into pSXSR
. C-terminal truncation mutants of Cbl-70Z were
constructed using internal restriction enzyme sites. All mutants of Cbl
contained an N-terminal HA epitope. For expression in P388D1 cells,
c-Cbl and Cbl-70Z were subcloned into LK440 (26) along
with the internal ribosomal entry site and the neomycin
phosphotransferase gene derived from pIRESneo (Clontech, Palo Alto,
CA). All constructs were confirmed by DNA sequencing.
Antibodies
Anti-Syk rabbit antiserum was provided by Drs. D. H. Chu and A. Weiss (University of California, San Francisco, CA). Anti-Syk mAb 4D10 (IgG2a) was purchased from Santa Cruz Biotechnology (Santa Cruz, CA). Anti-influenza HA epitope tag mAb 3F10 (rat IgG1) was obtained from Roche Molecular Biochemicals. Anti-phosphotyrosine mAb 4G10 (mouse IgG2a) was obtained from Upstate Biotechnology (Lake Placid, NY). Anti-phosphotyrosine polyclonal Ab was purchased from PharMingen (San Diego, CA).
Cell lysis and immunoprecipitation
Cells were washed twice with cold PBS and solubilized with buffer (25 mM Tris-HCl (pH 7.4), 150 mM NaCl, 1% Brij-96, 1 mM EGTA, 1 mM sodium orthovanadate, 10 µg/ml of aprotinin, 20 µg/ml of leupeptin, and 1 mM PMSF) on ice for 30 min. After centrifugation at 13,000 x g for 15 min at 4°C, clarified lysates were precleared with either Pansorbin (Calbiochem, La Jolla, CA) or protein G-agarose (Santa Cruz Biotechnology) for 1 h at 4°C. For immunoprecipitation, cell lysates were incubated with appropriate Abs for 2 h at 4°C. Immune complexes were captured with protein A-agarose or protein G-agarose. The immunoprecipitates were washed three times with PBS containing 1 mM sodium orthovanadate and 1 mM EDTA and used for either immunoblot or in vitro immune complex kinase assay.
Immunoblot
Immunoprecipitated proteins were eluted into Laemmli sample buffer with 100 mM DTT, boiled, separated on 7.5% SDS-PAGE gels, and electrophoretically transferred to polyvinylidene difluoride membranes (Immobilon P, Millipore, Bedford, MA). HRP-conjugated goat anti-mouse IgG (Jackson ImmunoResearch Laboratories, West Grove, PA) or HRP-conjugated anti-rat IgG (Santa Cruz Biotechnology) was used as a secondary reagent. Detection by enhanced chemiluminescence was performed according to the suppliers recommendation (ECL, Amersham, Aylesbury, U.K.). Densitometric quantitation was performed using Personal Densitometer SI and ImageQuant (Molecular Dynamics, Sunnyvale, CA).
Immune complex kinase assay
The in vitro immune complex kinase assay was performed as
described previously with slight modification (27).
Briefly, immunoprecipitates were additionally washed once with low salt
buffer containing 100 mM NaCl, 25 mM HEPES NaOH, and 5 mM
MnCl2 (pH 7.4), then incubated for 10 min at room
temperature in 30 µl of kinase buffer containing 25 mM HEPES NaOH, 5
mM MnCl2, 5 mM p-nitrophenylphosphate,
1 µM ATP (Roche Molecular Biochemicals), and 5 µCi
[
-32P]ATP (3000 Ci/mmol; DuPont-NEN, Boston,
MA) with 6 µg of-GST-band 3 as an exogenous substrate
(28). Reactions were stopped by the addition of sample
buffer and heating to 100°C for 5 min. Samples were analyzed by 12%
SDS-PAGE. Gels were dried and subjected to autoradiography.
| Results |
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R in COS
cells
The Fc receptors Fc
RI and Fc
RIIIA require coexpression of
the FcR
subunit for phagocytic signaling (24, 29). To
determine whether Cbl is involved in phagocytosis by Fc
RI/
and
Fc
RIIIA/
, we cotransfected Cbl-wt or Cbl-70Z with the FcR
subunit and Fc
RI or Fc
RIIIA in COS cells and examined their
effects on phagocytosis. Cbl-70Z, which was cloned from the 70Z/3 pre-B
lymphoma cell line, is a transforming mutant of Cbl in which the
internal 17 aa (residues 366382) are deleted (30) (see
Fig. 1
). Coexpression of Cbl-70Z enhanced
phagocytosis by Fc
RI/
2-fold and that by Fc
RIIIA/
3-fold
(Table I
). This enhancement of
phagocytosis by Cbl-70Z was similar to that induced by overexpression
of Syk, which was used as a positive control. In contrast, the
overexpression of Cbl-wt did not affect phagocytosis by these
receptors.
|
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RI-
-
, a chimeric Fc
receptor comprised of
the extracellular domain of Fc
RI and the transmembrane and
cytoplasmic domains of the FcR
subunit, was also enhanced by the
overexpression of Cbl-70Z, but not by Cbl-wt (Table I
receptor, Fc
RI-
-
, in our
experimental model for phagocytosis mediated by Fc
RI/
.
Unlike Fc
RI and Fc
RIIIA, Fc
RIIA does not require coexpression
of the FcR
subunit for transmission of a phagocytic
signal (22). Phagocytosis by Fc
RIIA, which
mediates phagocytosis more efficiently in COS cells than Fc
RI/
or
Fc
RIIIA/
, was also enhanced by the expression of Cbl-70Z, but the
enhancement was not as great (30% increase) as that observed for
Fc
RI/
, Fc
RIIIA/
, or Fc
RI-
-
.
Expression of Cbl-70Z enhances phagocytosis in P388D1 macrophages
To examine whether Cbl and its mutants have any effect on
Fc
R-mediated phagocytosis in professional phagocytes, we established
P388D1 murine macrophage cells that express HA epitope-tagged Cbl-wt or
Cbl-70Z (Fig. 2
A). Flow
cytometric analysis of permeabilized cells stained with anti-HA mAb
indicated that the expression of the protein is homogeneous, although
bulk transfectants are analyzed without subcloning (Fig. 2
B). Two different batches of bulk transfectants expressing
either Cbl-wt or Cbl-70Z and two control batches transfected with empty
vector were analyzed for their ability to phagocytose EA. As shown in
Fig. 2
C, P388D1 cells expressing Cbl-70Z had a 2- to 3-fold
higher phagocytic index than control cells transfected with empty
vector. The overexpression of Cbl-wt, on the other hand, did not affect
phagocytosis of EA by P388D1 macrophages.
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The observation that Syk kinase is an essential mediator of
phagocytosis by Fc
receptors (5, 6, 7) and that Cbl-wt
binds to and negatively regulates Syk in Fc
RI signaling in rat mast
cells (16) led us to investigate whether Cbl interacts
with Syk in Fc
R phagocytic signaling. In our study of phagocytosis,
it was Cbl-70Z that had a profound effect on this biological response,
while in Fc
RI signaling, Cbl-wt was effective. In mast cells, in
contrast to Cbl-wt, Cbl-70Z was shown to bind to, but not to inhibit,
Syk (16). We first speculated that COS cells might express
higher amounts of Cbl or Cbl-like inhibitory molecules that
constitutively inhibit Syk, and that Cbl-70Z, which lacked the
inhibitory action, might activate, or disinhibit, Syk by displacing
such inhibitors. If that was the case, we might expect the activation
of Syk with overexpression of Cbl-70Z. To examine this possibility, we
analyzed the tyrosine phosphorylation of Syk, which reflects Syk
activation, and its kinase activity in vitro.
We first analyzed the small amount of Syk endogenously expressed in COS
cells. As shown in Fig. 3
A,
cross-linking of Fc
RI-
-
induced tyrosine phosphorylation of
endogenous Syk in COS cells. However, there was little difference in
Syk tyrosine phosphorylation among cells transfected with an empty
vector, Cbl-wt or Cbl-70Z. Densitometric analysis showed that the
extent of tyrosine phosphorylation was as follows when normalized to
the amount of Syk detected by reblotting; vector
(EA-), 1.0; vector (EA+),
5.0; Cbl-wt (EA-), 0.4; Cbl-wt
(EA+), 3.7; Cbl-70Z (EA-)
1.2; and Cbl-70Z (EA+), 3.9 (mean of three
independent immunoblots, relative values with vector
(EA-) taken as 1). The kinase activity of Syk,
examined by in vitro kinase assay of anti-Syk immunoprecipitates,
was also unaffected by the overexpression of Cbl-wt or Cbl-70Z (Fig. 3
A, bottom). We also analyzed tyrosine
phosphorylation and in vitro kinase activity of Syk in COS cells
transfected with Fc
R, Syk, and Cbl (Fig. 3
B). Expression
of Cbl-70Z also failed to modify both tyrosine phosphorylation and in
vitro kinase activity of Syk.
|
RI-
-
in COS cells and determined the efficiency of
phagocytosis. Cbl-70Z in combination with Syk enhanced phagocytosis
further (Fig. 4
RI-
-
even when Syk was overexpressed. These observations
suggest that activation of Syk is probably not the mechanism by which
Cbl-70Z enhances phagocytosis by Fc
receptors.
|
RI-
-
To further characterize the enhancement of phagocytosis by Cbl
mutants, we examined the effect of v-Cbl on phagocytosis. v-Cbl
consists of the N-terminal residues of c-Cbl (1357 in human)
corresponding to the sequence present in viral gag-v-Cbl fusion protein
(see Fig. 1
) and possesses transforming activity in vitro (31, 32). As shown in Fig. 5
,
overexpression of v-Cbl also enhanced phagocytosis by the chimeric
Fc
R Fc
RI-
-
2-fold compared with that of control cells
transfected with Fc
R alone. The phagocytic index of the cells
transfected with v-Cbl was reproducibly less than cells transfected
with Cbl-70Z (Fig. 5
), although the expression of v-Cbl, as determined
by immunoblot with anti-HA Ab, was equal to or greater than that of
Cbl-70Z (data not shown).
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A point mutation (G306E) of Cbl, which corresponds to a loss of
function mutation of the C. elegans Cbl homologue SLI-1,
abrogates the binding of Cbl to ZAP-70 as well as the transforming
ability of v-cbl (18, 31). It is thus proposed
that the N-terminal region of Cbl contains a PTB domain. Our
observation that v-Cbl as well as Cbl-70Z enhance phagocytosis
suggested that the PTB domain might be essential for the effect on
Fc
R-mediated phagocytosis. We therefore examined the impact of the
G306E mutation on enhancement of phagocytosis by Cbl-70Z and v-Cbl. As
shown in Fig. 5
, the ability of Cbl-70Z and v-Cbl to enhance
phagocytosis was markedly decreased by the G306E mutation. Enhancement
of phagocytosis by Cbl-70Z and v-Cbl thus appears to be dependent on a
functional PTB domain. It should be noted, however, that the G306E
mutant of Cbl-70Z was not completely inactive in enhancing
phagocytosis. Cbl-70Z/G306E still enhanced phagocytosis 2-fold compared
to the control, which was transfected with Fc
RI-
-
and an empty
vector. Taken together with the observation that v-Cbl is less active
than Cbl-70Z in enhancing phagocytosis, the ability of Cbl-70Z/G306E to
enhance phagocytosis suggests that the C-terminal region of Cbl-70Z is
also necessary for optimal enhancement of phagocytosis by Cbl-70Z.
The C-terminal deletion of Cbl-70Z results in reduced ability to enhance phagocytosis
The C-terminal region of Cbl, which is absent in v-Cbl, contains
several functional motifs, including the ring finger, proline-rich, and
leucine zipper-like domains (30). This C-terminal region
also contains the binding sites for Vav, the p85 subunit of PI-3K, and
for Nck and Crk (33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39). To determine the region of
Cbl-70Z that is required for optimal enhancement of phagocytosis, we
constructed several C-terminal deletion mutants of Cbl-70Z and studied
their effects on phagocytosis. As shown in Fig. 6
A, deletion of the C-terminal
67 aa (Cbl-70Z/839) resulted in
50% decrease in the ability to
enhance phagocytosis compared with that of full-length Cbl-70Z. Further
deletions (Cbl-70Z/730, Cbl-70Z/541, and Cbl-70Z/480) did not further
decrease the enhancing effect on phagocytosis.
|
RI-
-
in COS cells (Fig. 6
RI-
-
in COS cells. Cbl-70Z, but not Cbl-wt, is constitutively tyrosine phosphorylated in COS-7 cells
In normal cells, c-Cbl becomes phosphorylated on tyrosine
following cellular stimulation. In transfected NIH-3T3 cells, Cbl-70Z
is constitutively hyperphosphorylated, whereas v-Cbl is reported to
lack any major tyrosine phosphorylation sites (40). To
examine whether tyrosine phosphorylation of Cbl is involved in its
ability to enhance phagocytosis, we examined the tyrosine
phosphorylation state of Cbl in COS cells. Immunoprecipitation with
anti-HA Ab followed by immunoblot with anti-phosphotyrosine Ab
demonstrated that Cbl-70Z was constitutively hyperphosphorylated in COS
cells compared with Cbl-wt (Fig. 7
). We
could not detect tyrosine phosphorylation of v-Cbl with or without
receptor cross-linking (data not shown).
|
The PI-3K inhibitor, wortmannin, inhibits enhancement of phagocytosis by Cbl-70Z and v-Cbl
Previous studies have shown that the inhibitor of PI-3K,
wortmannin, inhibits phagocytosis by Fc
R (41, 42, 43),
implying that PI-3K is essential for phagocytosis. We examined whether
wortmannin inhibits the enhancement of Fc
R-mediated phagocytosis by
Cbl-70Z or v-Cbl. As shown in Fig. 8
,
phagocytosis was inhibited by wortmannin in the presence of Cbl-70Z,
v-Cbl, or Syk.
|
RI-
-
, which was either
cross-linked with EA or left unstimulated. Immunoblotting with
anti-p85 PI-3K showed that little of the p85 subunit of PI-3K
coimmunoprecipitated with Cbl-wt or Cbl-70Z regardless of cross-linking
of Fc
RI-
-
(data not shown). In addition, immunoprecipitation
with anti-p85 did not specifically coimmunoprecipitate Cbl-wt or
Cbl-70Z. The inhibition of phagocytosis by wortmannin suggests that
intact PI-3K activity is required for the enhancement of phagocytosis
by Cbl-70Z and v-Cbl. However, a direct interaction of Cbl and PI-3K
may not be necessary for Cbl-70Z to enhance phagocytosis by Fc
receptors. | Discussion |
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R. Expression of Cbl-70Z was also shown
to enhance Fc
R-dependent phagocytosis in the P388D1 macrophage cell
line. The enhancing effect of Cbl-70Z on phagocytosis was mapped to
both its N-terminal PTB domain and the C-terminal 67-aa residues. The
effects of Cbl-70Z and v-Cbl appear to require an intact PI-3K
activity. However, Syk kinase may not be the direct target of the
action of the Cbl mutants.
Overexpression of Cbl-70Z in COS cells enhanced the phagocytosis
mediated by Fc
RI plus the FcR
subunit, Fc
RIIIA plus the FcR
subunit, and Fc
RIIA (Table I
). The enhancement was observed to a
lesser degree with Fc
RIIA compared with Fc
RI or Fc
RIIIA, which
rely on the coexpressed Fc
R
subunit for transduction of the
phagocytic signal. The low level of enhancement with Fc
RIIA may be
due to the high basal level of phagocytosis observed with Fc
RIIA in
the absence of coexpression of Cbl-70Z. Fc
RIIA, whose activation
motif differs from the classic immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation
motif, mediates phagocytosis more efficiently than Fc
RI and
Fc
RIIIA, as described previously (3, 4). Although the
mechanism by which Fc
RIIA mediates phagocytosis more efficiently in
COS cells than the FcR
subunit is unknown, the high baseline level
of phagocytosis with Fc
RIIA may have limited the extent of
enhancement by Cbl-70Z. Qualitatively, phagocytosis mediated by all
three classes of Fc
R were enhanced by coexpression of Cbl-70Z,
indicating that Cbl-70Z modulates the pathway of phagocytosis that is
shared by the FcR
subunit and Fc
RIIA.
In contrast to Cbl-70Z, Cbl-wt did not modulate phagocytosis in COS
cells. Previous studies have shown different results on whether c-Cbl
or its transforming mutants have dominant biological and biochemical
effects, suggesting that the effect is dependent on the cell type
studied (14, 16, 18, 44). However, we observed a similar
positive effect with expression of Cbl-70Z and little effect with
Cbl-wt on Fc
R-mediated phagocytosis in P388D1 macrophages (Fig. 2
).
The reason why expression of Cbl-70Z rather than that of Cbl-wt is
effective in modulating Fc
R-mediated phagocytosis is unclear. One
possibility is that Cbl-70Z, due to its 17-aa deletion, behaves as a
dysregulated or an activated form of c-Cbl, as suggested by previous
studies (14, 16, 18, 44). On the other hand, endogenous
expression of c-Cbl or Cbl-like molecules may obscure the effect of
overexpression of Cbl-wt. Although it may be dysregulated, Cbl-70Z
would still be expected to retain some characteristics of c-Cbl and to
modulate cellular processes normally regulated by c-Cbl. Thus, our
observation implies that c-Cbl may be functionally involved in the
phagocytic pathway mediated by Fc
R.
In addressing the question of how Cbl-70Z enhances phagocytosis by
Fc
R, we particularly focused on the effect of Cbl-70Z on Syk kinase.
This was because Syk is essential for phagocytosis mediated by Fc
R
(6, 7, 12) and because negative regulation of Syk by
Cbl-wt in Fc
RI signaling suggests that Syk is a potential target of
Cbl-70Z (16). Anti-phosphotyrosine immunoblots and in
vitro kinase assays of Syk, either expressed endogenously in COS cells
or overexpressed by cotransfection, failed to demonstrate that Cbl-70Z
activates Syk (Fig. 3
). These results were surprising, in that our
initial hypothesis was that the effect of Cbl-70Z was mediated by
activation of Syk kinase. Functional analyses also showed that the
overexpression of Syk and Cbl-70Z has an additive effect on
phagocytosis mediated by Fc
RI-
-
(Fig. 4
), suggesting that
these two molecules enhance different pathways or steps in
phagocytosis. Taken together, these findings suggest that Syk is not
the direct target of Cbl-70Z in the enhancement of phagocytosis by
Fc
R.
A series of experiments employing mutants of Cbl-70Z demonstrated that
both the PTB domain, which may be structurally a SH2 domain
(45), and the C-terminal 67 aa of Cbl-70Z are critical for
the optimal enhancement of phagocytosis mediated by Fc
R. Our
observation that v-Cbl as well as Cbl-70Z enhance phagocytosis by
Fc
R suggests that the N-terminal region of Cbl, including the PTB
domain, plays a role in the enhancement of phagocytosis. Furthermore,
the G306E mutation of Cbl-70Z and v-Cbl results in reduced enhancement
of phagocytosis, thus confirming the involvement of the PTB domain in
the enhancement of phagocytosis by Cbl-70Z and v-Cbl. However, the
ability to enhance phagocytosis is not completely dependent on the PTB
domain, since Cbl-70Z with the G306E mutation still retained some
ability to enhance phagocytosis (Fig. 5
). The observation that the
ability of v-Cbl to enhance phagocytosis is weaker than that of Cbl-70Z
also suggests that the C-terminal region absent in v-Cbl (see Fig. 1
)
is involved in the action of Cbl-70Z in Fc
R-mediated phagocytosis.
The dampening effect on phagocytosis of several C-terminal truncation
mutants further demonstrated that the C-terminal 67 aa contribute to
the ability of Cbl-70Z to enhance Fc
R-mediated phagocytosis. The
observation that a Cbl-70Z mutant bearing both the G306E point mutation
and the C-terminal 67-aa deletion was totally lacking in ability to
enhance Fc
R phagocytosis further confirmed that both the PTB domain
and the C-terminal tail region play roles in the enhancement of
phagocytosis by Cbl-70Z.
How can the PTB domain and C-terminal region of Cbl-70Z potentiate
phagocytosis? Cbl has been observed to be tyrosine phosphorylated upon
cross-linking of cell surface receptors (46). Although it is not
apparent from Fig. 7
, longer exposure of our immunoblots showed that
tyrosine phosphorylation of Cbl-wt was induced by cross-linking of
coexpressed Fc
R (data not shown). On the other hand, Cbl-70Z was
hyperphosphorylated even without cross-linking of Fc
R. Cross-linking
of Fc
R induced a slight increase in tyrosine phosphorylation of
Cbl-70Z in Fig. 7
, but the result was not consistent among different
experiments. The internal 17-aa deletion of Cbl-70Z has been suggested
to induce a conformational change that leads to increased tyrosine
phosphorylation of the protein (32, 40). Phosphotyrosine
residues may, in turn, recruit other molecules to enhance phagocytosis.
Minimal degrees of tyrosine phosphorylation of Cbl-wt may not be
sufficient to enhance the phagocytic pathway. On the other hand, v-Cbl,
which also enhances phagocytosis, was not tyrosine phosphorylated in
the presence or the absence of Fc
R cross-linking, suggesting that
the enhancement of phagocytosis by the N-terminal PTB domain is
apparently independent of tyrosine phosphorylation. The contribution to
phagocytosis of the C-terminal region of Cbl-70Z, rather than the
N-terminal PTB domain, may, however, be dependent on tyrosine
phosphorylation. The truncation mutant of Cbl-70Z (70Z/839) is
partially active, and a double mutant 70Z/G306E/839 is completely
inactive in phagocytosis. Both are tyrosine phosphorylated to a lesser
degree than Cbl-70Z, suggesting the involvement of Cbl-70Z tyrosine
phosphorylation in enhancement of phagocytosis. The C-terminal 67-aa
stretch (residues 840906), to which the activity in enhancing
phagocytosis was partially mapped, contains two tyrosine residues
(residues 869 and 871). However, they are not the major tyrosine
phosphorylation sites of Cbl-70Z reported to date (47).
The deletion of the C-terminal tail may indirectly affect tyrosine
phosphorylation of the proximal C-terminal region, which reportedly
contains binding sites to PI-3K, Vav, Crk, and Nck, and thus may affect
the ability to enhance phagocytosis.
The PTB domain in the N-terminal region of Cbl has been implicated in the regulation of tyrosine kinases such as LET-23 in C. elegans, platelet-derived growth factor, and ZAP-70 (14, 18, 32). However, we could not detect an increase in overall tyrosine phosphorylation in COS cells expressing Cbl-70Z or v-Cbl (data not shown). This observation suggests that mechanisms other than activation of tyrosine kinases are involved in the ability of the PTB domain to enhance phagocytosis. Alternatively, an increase in tyrosine phosphorylation undetectable in our transient expression system in COS cells may be responsible for the activity of the PTB domain.
Inhibition of the stimulatory effect of Cbl-70Z or v-Cbl on
phagocytosis by wortmannin, a PI-3K inhibitor, indicates that PI-3K is
required for Cbl-70Z or v-Cbl to enhance phagocytosis. However,
immunoprecipitation studies suggest that the direct interaction of
Cbl-70Z and the p85 subunit of PI-3K is not involved in the enhancement
of Fc
R-mediated phagocytosis in COS cells. The study with C-terminal
deletion mutants of Cbl-70Z (Fig. 6
) also showed that the deletion
encompassing Tyr731, which is reportedly the
major binding site to the p85 subunit of PI-3K (44, 48),
did not change the ability of Cbl-70Z to enhance phagocytosis, implying
that the physical interaction of Cbl-70Z and the p85 subunit may not
play a role in the enhancement of phagocytosis. Cbl may indirectly
modulate a molecule(s) upstream of PI-3K. Alternatively, PI-3K may be
in a pathway parallel to that modified by Cbl-70Z, playing a permissive
role for cells to perform phagocytosis.
We have studied the mechanism of phagocytosis by Fc
R in a
heterologous expression system in COS cells (3, 4). This
approach provides the opportunity to study the role of a single class
of Fc
R in the absence of any other Fc receptor and allows the
coexpression of proteins of interest. COS cells possess the machinery
for phagocytosis, evidenced by their ability to phagocytose IgG
opsonized particles when transfected with appropriate Fc
R.
Phagocytosis mediated by Fc
R in COS cells is also demonstrated
morphologically to be quite similar to that in professional phagocytes
(41, 47, 49) indicating that COS cells are an appropriate
experimental model to study the molecular events involved in
Fc
R-mediated phagocytosis. However, it is not certain whether the
mechanism of phagocytosis in COS cells is precisely the same as that in
such myeloid cells as monocytes/macrophages. Although we have shown
that the expression of Cbl-70Z enhances phagocytosis in both COS cells
and murine macrophages, the molecular mechanism of the enhancement may
or may not be identical.
In summary, we have observed the stimulatory effects of mutants of Cbl
on phagocytosis induced by Fc
R in COS cells and the macrophage cell
line P388D1. Our data indicate that transforming mutants of Cbl can
modulate phagocytic signaling mediated by Fc
R and imply a functional
involvement of Cbl in Fc
R-mediated phagocytosis. Our observation
that both the PTB domain and the C-terminal tail contribute to the
action of Cbl-70Z is novel and provides an insight into the structural
basis of the action of Cbl and its oncogenic mutants.
| Acknowledgments |
|---|
| Footnotes |
|---|
2 Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Alan D. Schreiber, Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Room 705 Biomedical Research Building II/III, 421 Curie Boulevard, Philadelphia, PA 19104. E-mail address: ![]()
3 Abbreviations used in this paper: EA, Ab-coated erythrocytes; PI-3K, phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase; Cbl-wt, wild-type Cbl; PTB, phophotyrosine binding; HA, influenza hemagglutinin. ![]()
Received for publication December 30, 1998. Accepted for publication September 21, 1999.
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