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National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Rockville, MD 20852
| Abstract |
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RI-mediated serotonin release and the Y8F mutant was relatively
ineffective compared with wt NKG2A. In contrast, the Y40F mutant was
70% as effective as wt in mediating inhibition, and the Y-2 mutations
did not remarkably affect inhibitory function. These results show that,
like KIR, both NKG2A ITIMs are required for mediating the maximal
inhibitory signal, but opposite to KIR, the membrane-distal ITIM is of
primary importance rather than the membrane-proximal ITIM. This
probably reflects the opposite orientation of the ITIMs in type II vs
type I proteins. | Introduction |
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and IFN-
(1, 2, 3). A large variety of
"activating" receptors potentiate NK cell killing of "target"
cells (4, 5, 6, 7), and most of the ligands for these receptors
are expressed on normal cells. Consequently, to prevent indiscriminate
production of cytokines and killing of "normal" cells, the
activation of NK cells are regulated by inhibitory receptors that are
specific for MHC class I molecules. These include CD94/NKG2A and
certain members of the killer cell Ig-like receptor
(KIR)3 family of
receptors (8, 9). The coengagement of NK cell
inhibitory receptors with activation receptors usually results in
the inhibition of the activation signal (10, 11). The
down-regulation of class I molecules that often occurs in pathogenic
infections, especially viral, thereby leads to a "derepression" of
NK cells (1, 6, 12). Inhibitory receptors block NK cell
activation by recruiting protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTP) to points
of signal initiation (13).
Inhibitory receptors possess one or more Tyr residues in their
cytoplasmic tails that upon phosphorylation recruit src homology 2
(SH2)-domain containing PTPs. These Tyr residues are located within a
small stretch of amino acids known as immunoreceptor Tyr-based
inhibitory motifs (ITIMs) that by in large have an I/V/L/SxYxxL/V
consensus sequence (11). In addition to the Tyr (Y)
residues, the conservation of residues at two positions N-terminal
(ter) from the Tyr (Y-2) within the ITIM sequences have been shown to
play critical roles in interacting with SH2 domain-bearing tyrosine
phosphatase (SHP)-1 and SHP-2 (14, 15, 16). Studies on ITIM
containing phosphopeptides from Fc
RIIB (15, 17) showed
that the amino acid residue at Y-2 is critical for SHP-1 and SHP-2
binding. Results with phosphopeptides based on the ITIM in MAFA
supported this observation and further showed that the nature of the
amino acid residue at this position could be used to distinguish SHP-1
and SHP-2 binding (18). For KIR ITIMs, studies with
phosphopeptides (15, 16) or receptor constructs containing
KIR cytoplasmic tails (14, 15) have shown that
substitutions for the Y-2 amino acid residue in the membrane-proximal
ITIM interfere with SHP-1 association.
In most cases, inhibitory receptors contain anywhere from two to four
individual ITIM sequences in their cytoplasmic tails. A number of
studies have attempted to determine the role that individual ITIMs
within these molecules play in generating inhibitory signals. A study
on PILR
, which has two ITIM motifs, showed that only the
membrane-proximal ITIM is required for SHP-1 recruitment and inhibitory
function (19). In the case of platelet endothelial cell
adhesion molecule-1 (CD31), which contains two ITIMs, both were
shown to be necessary for recruitment of PTPs and that SHP-2 was
preferentially recruited over SHP-1 (20, 21, 22). PIR-B
has paired ITIMs (Y794; VTYAQL and Y824; SVYATL) that are responsible
for a significant portion of its inhibitory function (23, 24). It is clear from both studies that inactivation of the
membrane-distal, C-ter ITIM (Y824) alone has little effect on
inhibitory function. Also both groups of investigators agreed that
simultaneous inactivation of both ITIMs drastically reduced
SHP-1/SHP-2-mediated inhibitory function, but they somewhat disagreed
on the independent role of the N-ter ITIM (Y794). Maeda et al.
(23) found that inactivation of this ITIM alone gave loss
of function approaching dual inactivation, whereas Bléry et al.
(24) found that inactivation of the Y794 ITIM alone had
less of an effect on inhibition, but it was clearly more significant
than the level of inhibition obtained with the Y824 mutant.
Studies on KIR ITIMs provide further evidence that ITIMs vary in functional capability. KIR inhibitory receptors, except for KIR2DL4 and KIR2DL5, harbor two ITIMs. Studies with peptides containing both ITIM sequences showed that a peptide with only a functional N-ter ITIM could activate SHP-1, whereas a peptide with only a functional C-ter ITIM could not; however, both ITIMs intact were required for full SHP-1 activation (16). This result is supported by receptor ligation studies (14, 25) that showed that the membrane-distal ITIM of KIR cannot function independently of the membrane-proximal ITIM, but that the membrane-distal ITIM can serve to enhance the function of the membrane-proximal ITIM. Fry et al. (26), using a chimeric molecule consisting of the extracellular and transmembrane domain of CD8 and a KIR cytoplasmic tail, also found that the membrane-proximal ITIM was nearly as effective as the combined ITIMs for inhibition of TCR activation, but in contrast, found that the membrane-distal ITIM alone retained partial inhibitory capacity.
Human NKG2A has two ITIMs that have been shown to be capable of
interacting with SHP-1 and SHP-2 (27, 28). We set out to
determine the relative importance of each of the ITIMs present in the
intracytoplasmic region of NKG2A for mediating an inhibitory signal. We
were particularly interested in determining whether the two ITIMs
present in NKG2A have the same relative importance as those present in
inhibitory KIR molecules, especially because these two types of
receptors perform equivalent functions in the same cell type. The two
ITIMs in both KIR and NKG2A have about the same intracytoplasmic
spatial arrangement with the first ITIM being
30 aa residues from
the plasma membrane and with the two ITIMs in each molecule
30 aa
residues apart. To examine the role of these ITIMs in CD94/NKG2A
signaling, we generated a series of mutants within the ITIMs of NKG2A
and determined their ability to mediate inhibition of activation
signals.
| Materials and Methods |
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The rat basophilic leukemia 2H3 (RBL) cell line and clones transfected with CD94 plus NKG2A cDNAs were grown in complete RPMI 1640 media supplemented with 10% heat-inactivated FBS and 4 mM glutamine, and maintained in a humidified atmosphere of 5% CO2 at 37°C. The cells grow adherent and are recovered by treatment with trypsin-EDTA purchased from Invitrogen (Rockville, MD). The human NK cell line, NKL, was grown in RPMI 1640 media supplemented with 10% human serum, 4 mM glutamine, 1 mM sodium pyruvate, and 200 U/ml of rIL-2 (TECIN-recombinant human IL-2 from National Cancer Institute-Cancer Research and Development Center, Frederick, MD).
Sources for each Ab are indicated: anti-NKG2A mAb (Z199, IgG2b), anti-CD94 mAb (HP-3B1, IgG2a) with and without PE conjugation, and anti-CD56 mAb (C218) from Beckman Coulter (Fullerton, CA); PE-conjugated isotype-matched control Ab anti-dansyl IgG2b, isotype matched for Z199 from BD PharMingen (San Diego, CA); F(ab')2 donkey anti-mouse IgG from Jackson ImmunoResearch Laboratories (West Grove, PA); anti-phosphotyrosine mAb 4G10 (IgG2b) and anti-SHP-1 rabbit polyclonal IgG from Upstate Biotechnology (Lake Placid, NY); anti-SHP-2 mAb (PTP1D/SHP2) from BD Transduction Laboratories (San Diego, CA); anti-SHP-2 rabbit polyclonal IgG from Upstate Biotechnology; and anti-SH2-containing inositol (poly)phosphate 5' phosphatase (SHIP) rabbit polyclonal IgG (N-1) from Santa Cruz Biotechnology (Santa Cruz, CA). Western blots were developed with HRP-conjugated anti-mouse and anti-rabbit IgG from Amersham Pharmacia Biotech (Piscataway, NJ). Mouse anti-DNP IgE mAb was purchased from Sigma-Aldrich (St. Louis, MO). The NKG2-specific mAb 8E4 was derived by Houchins et al. (29).
cDNA constructs
Mutagenesis was performed with sets of mutagenic primers (Table I
) with a QuickChange Site-directed
mutagenesis kit (Stratagene, La Jolla, CA) starting with wild-type (wt)
NKG2A cloned in the plasmid pFneo-MCS. Mutation of A for T was used to
replace Tyr by Phe in generating the Y8F and Y40F mutants. Silent
mutations were also created in both cases to generate restriction sites
for BglII (Y8F) and SacI (Y40F) restriction
endonucleases to facilitate selection of the mutant clones. The
Tyr
Phe mutant Y8F was used to generate the double mutant Y8F/Y40F
using the primers shown in Table I
. The V6A and I38A mutants were
generated using double mutations of AT for GC and TA for CC to replace
Val and Ile, respectively, by Ala. Silent mutations were used to
generate restriction sites for SunI in the V6A mutant and
NarI in the I38A mutant to enhance selection of positive
mutant clones. The V6A mutant was used to generate V6A/I38A double
mutant.
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Transfection of RBL cells
The wt or mutant forms of NKG2A cDNA in the mammalian expression vector pFneo-MCS and CD94 cDNA in the mammalian expression vector pFhym-MCS (the vectors were the gift of K. Sturmhoefel) were cotransfected into RBL cells using LipofectAMINE 2000 (Invitrogen) as follows. The day before transfection, RBL cells were trypsinized and counted, followed by plating at 5 x 105 cells/well in a 6-well plate (flat-bottom tissue culture plate; Costar, Corning, NY). Each well contained 2.5 ml of complete RPMI 1640 medium and cells were grown overnight to allow attachment to the plate at 9095% confluence. For transfection of the cells in each well, 4 µg each of the NKG2A and CD94 cDNA constructs were mixed with 250 µl of Opti-MEM medium (Opti-MEM reduced serum medium; Invitrogen). A total of 15 µl of LF2000 Reagent was added to another 250 µl of Opti-MEM medium and allowed to set for 5 min. This was then combined with the DNA suspension, and the mixture was incubated for 20 min at room temperature (RT) to allow DNA-LF2000 Reagent complexes to form. The cells were washed with complete RPMI 1640 medium and a fresh 2.5 ml of complete RPMI 1640 medium was then added to each well together with 0.5 ml of the DNA-LF2000 Reagent complexes. After a 24-h incubation in a humidified CO2 incubator, the complete RPMI 1640 was replaced and, after another 24 h, the cells were washed and fresh complete RPMI 1640 medium containing 1 mg/ml of G418 (Invitrogen) and 0.6 mg/ml of hygromycin B (Invitrogen) was added. Clones obtained by culturing under limiting dilution conditions were examined for surface expression levels of NKG2A/CD94 by flow cytometric analyses.
Flow cytometry
Flow cytometric analyses were performed on a FACSort cytofluorometer (BD Immunocytochemistry Systems, San Jose, CA). Direct immunofluorescent staining was performed using PE-conjugated anti-NKG2A (Z199) or anti-CD94 (HP-3B1) mAb (Beckman Coulter). PE-conjugated isotype-matched control Abs were used to monitor background staining levels.
Pervanadate treatment and immunoprecipitation
A total of 1 x 106 RBL cells were plated in a petri tissue culture dish (10-cm diameter) in 20 ml of complete RPMI 1640 medium and incubated overnight at 37°C. After washing with serum-free medium, 10 ml of serum-free medium preheated to 37°C containing freshly prepared sodium pervanadate (0.1 mM sodium orthovanadate and 10 mM H2O2) was added and cells were incubated at 37°C for 20 min. The medium was removed by aspiration, plates were placed on ice, and the RBL cells were lysed in 1 ml of lysis buffer (PBS with 0.5% Triton X-100, 50 mM NaF, 1 mM Na3VO4, and protease inhibitors). Protease inhibitors were diluted according to the manufacturers instructions (protease inhibitor mixture for mammalian cell extracts; Sigma-Aldrich). Nonpervanadate-treated cells were included as a control. After 30 min on ice, lysates were cleared of debris by centrifugation at 16,000 x g for 15 min at 4°C. Immunoprecipitations were done with anti-NKG2A or anti-CD94 mAb that were preattached to protein A magnetic beads (Dynal Biotech, Lake Success, NY) according the manufacturers protocol.
Immunoblotting
Immunoprecipitates and lysates, precleared by centrifugation at
16,000 x g, were boiled for 5 min in reducing (50 mM
Tris-Cl (pH 6.8), 2% (w/v) SDS, 0.1% (w/v) bromphenol blue, 10%
(v/v) glycerol, and 100 mM 2-ME) or nonreducing (the same as reducing,
but without 2-ME) sample buffer. Samples were then fractionated by
SDS-PAGE (10% acrylamide) and transferred to Immobilon-P membranes
(Millipore, Bedford, MA). Membranes were then saturated/blocked with
4% (w/v) BSA (catalog no. A9647; Sigma-Aldrich) in PBS for
1 h and then probed with either anti-phosphotyrosine,
anti-SHP-1, anti-SHP-2, or anti-SHIP Ab appropriately
diluted in 4% (w/v) BSA in PBS for 16 h at 4°C, followed by a 1
h incubation with HRP-conjugated goat anti-rabbit or goat
anti-mouse IgG diluted in 10% nonfat milk powder in PBS. Membranes
were washed between each step with washing buffer (10 mM Tris-Cl (pH
7.5), 100 mM NaCl, 0.1% Tween 20). Peroxidase-labeled Ab were detected
using an ECL Western blotting kit (Amersham Pharmacia Biotech). After
analyses, membranes were stripped with 10 mM 2-ME, 2% SDS, 62.5 mM
Tris-HCl (pH 6.7) at 50°C for 30 min, and after blocking nonspecific
reactivity by saturation of the membrane with 4% (w/v) BSA in PBS,
were immunoblotted with anti-NKG2A mAb (8E4). Densitometry
measurements of bands detected with anti-phosphotyrosine,
anti-SHP-1, and anti-NKG2A were conducted using a Scion Image
4.0.2 (Scion, Frederick, MD). After compensations for background,
the phosphotyrosine and SHP-1 band intensities were adjusted by the
level of the NKG2A band intensity for each immunoblot. Band intensities
relative to wt NKG2A were determined and plotted as a bar graph.
Serotonin release
RBL cells transfected with wt or mutant NKG2A plus CD94 cDNAs were suspended in 10 ml of RPMI 1640 medium supplemented with 10% FCS at 1 x 106 cells/ml and incubated at 37°C for 1 h with 2 mCi/ml 5-[3H] hydroxytryptamine creatinine sulfate (NEN, Boston, MA). After washing three times with 50 ml of PBS and once with 50 ml of RPMI 1640 medium, the cells were incubated for 1 h at 37°C in RPMI 1640 medium supplemented with 10% FCS. They were washed again with 50 ml of RPMI 1640 medium, followed by resuspending in the same medium and distribution in 96-well microculture plates at 2 x 105 cells/well/50 µl. The wells in the plate were precoated with either anti-CD94 (or anti-NKG2A) mAb or IgE, or a mixture of the Abs plus IgE. For titration analyses, we used a constant concentration of IgE anti-DNP mAb (20 µg/ml) and various concentrations of anti-CD94 mAb (0, 0.2, 2, and 20 µg/ml). The plates with the cells were then incubated for 30 min at 37°C and the reactions were stopped by adding 150 µl of ice-cold medium and by placing the plates on ice for 5 min. Plates were centrifuged for 1 min at 3,000 x g at 4°C and 100 µl of each supernatant was mixed with 5 ml of scintillation fluid (Bio-Safe II; Research Products, Mount Prospect, IL) for determination of radioactivity levels in a Beckman LS6000 counter (Beckman Coulter). For determination of the total amount of serotonin, 100 µl of 1% SDS and 1% IGEPAL CA-630 (Sigma-Aldrich) were added to the remaining cell suspension in each well, and then, after a 10 min incubation at RT, 100 µl of lysed cell suspension was counted as described above. Triplicate samples were used for all experiments. Percentage of specific release was calculated as follows: (cpm in supernatant - cpm spontaneous release)/(total cpm - cpm spontaneous release) x 100, where total cpm is cpm in supernatant + cpm in lysate/2.
Confocal microscopy
Anti-NKG2A mAb, anti-SHP-1 Ab, and anti-SHP-2 Ab were labeled with the Alexa Fluor 488 and Alexa Fluor 594 mAb Labeling kits (Molecular Probes, Eugene OR), respectively, according to the manufacturers instructions. Anti-CD94 mAb at 20 µg/ml in 200 µl of PBS was added to cell culture vessel wells with coverglass growth surfaces (Lab-Tek Chambered Coverglass system; PGC Scientifics, Frederick, MD) and incubated overnight at 4°C. The chambers were washed three times with PBS before addition of RBL cells to each chamber at 2 x 105 cells in 200 µl of complete RPMI medium. The vessels were spun for 3 min at 117 x g, followed by incubation for 10 min at 37°C. The medium was removed by aspiration and the cells were permeabilized and fixed with 0.1% Triton X-100 in 4% paraformaldehyde at RT for 20 min. After three washings with PBS, 2 µl of Alexa-labeled Ab was added in 200 µl of PBS followed by incubation on ice for 30 min. Cells were then washed three times with 4% paraformaldehyde and stored in the dark in 200 µl of 4% paraformaldehyde until analysis by confocal microscopy. Images were collected on a Leica TCS-SP2 confocal microscope (Leica Microsystems, Exton, PA) equipped with argon (488 nm) and krypton (568 nm) lasers, using x40 and x63 oil immersion objectives NA 1.25. Detector slits were adjusted to minimize overlap between the channels. Images were processed with Imaris software v3.1.2 (Bitplane, Zürich, Switzerland) without filtering. Optical sections of the cells (21 images each) were taken. For illustration, the sections, comprising the one-third of the cells (7 images) on the side attached to the coverslip (cs) and the one-third of the cells at the opposite side are shown as a maximum projection. For three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of single cells, a x63 oil immersion objective (NA 1.32) and zoom factor 3.00 was used and images were taken with a z-axis interval of 0.35 µm. A composite of these images was then projected as a 3D model of the cell. Multiple RBL cells of each type were imaged in this manner. Vertical segments of each from this 3D model were then made by using Imaris software v3.1.2.
| Results |
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To examine the function of individual ITIMs within the cytoplasmic
tail of NKG2A, we generated Tyr
Phe mutations by site-directed
mutagenesis in both the membrane-distal and membrane-proximal ITIMs
either individually or in combination. Likewise, as the aliphatic
residues N-ter to the Tyr (Y-2) residues have been shown to be
important for ITIM function, in particular SHP-1 binding
(14, 15, 16), these residues were changed to Ala either
individually or in combination (Fig. 1
A). cDNAs encoding the
various forms of NKG2A were stably cotransfected with the cDNA
encoding CD94 into RBL cells and clones expressing
comparable levels of each CD94/NKG2A receptor (Fig. 1
B) were
selected for comparative analyses.
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The recruitment of PTPs by ITIM containing proteins is dependent
on phosphorylation of the ITIM Tyr residues by kinases. To insure that
the ITIM Tyr residues could be phosphorylated, CD94/NKG2A was isolated
from cells that had been treated with pervanadate to inhibit endogenous
phosphatase activity (30). CD94/NKG2A was
immunoprecipitated using the NKG2A-specific mAb Z199 and analyzed for
phosphorylation by immunoblotting (Fig. 2
A). As expected, no Tyr
phosphorylation was detected for the double Tyr mutant Y8F/Y40F. The
Y40F mutation decreased the amount of phosphorylation detectable by
immunoblotting roughly by one-half compared with the wt NKG2A. The Y8F
mutant NKG2A was routinely less phosphorylated than the Y40F mutant.
The mutations at the Y-2 positions (V6A, I38A, V6A/I38A) had little or
no effect on phosphorylation levels. Similar data was obtained when
CD94-specific mAb was used to precipitate the CD94/NKG2A receptors
(data not shown).
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Phosphorylated NKG2A has been shown to primarily recruit the SHP-1
PTP and to interfere with activation signals generated by stimulatory
receptors (27, 28). To identify the PTPs capable of being
recruited by the CD94/NKG2A receptors expressed in the RBL
transfectants, the cells were treated with pervanadate to insure
maximal phosphorylation and the PTPs coimmunoprecipitated with
anti-CD94 or -NKG2A mAb were examined by immunoblotting with
anti-SHP-1, -SHP-2, or SHIP Ab. As expected, SHP-1 was found to
coprecipitate with the wt CD94/NKG2A receptor (Fig. 2
B);
however, all of the ITIM mutations interfered to some degree with the
amount of SHP-1 coprecipitated with CD94/NKG2A. The immunoprecipitates
of the Tyr single mutants Y8F or Y40F had markedly reduced levels of
SHP-1 compared with wt, and no detectable SHP-1 was coprecipitated with
the double Tyr mutant (Y8F/Y40F). Both of the single Y-2 mutants, V6A
and I38A, coprecipitated roughly 50% of the amount of SHP-1 compared
with wt CD94/NKG2A and the double Y-2 mutant V6A/I38A was even less
effective in coprecipitating SHP-1. Only wt CD94/NKG2A showed any
detectable association with SHP-2 and in no case was SHIP detected in
the CD94/NKG2A immunoprecipitates (data not shown).
Analysis of SHP-1 and NKG2A cellular localization by confocal microscopy
Except for theY8F/Y40F double mutant, all of the CD94/NKG2A
receptors clearly can associate with SHP-1 after hyperphosphorylation
induced by pervanadate treatment (Fig. 2
B). We used confocal
microscopy to determine whether receptor ligation leads to the
colocalization of SHP-1 with each of the CD94/NKG2A receptors. RBL
cells transfected with CD94 plus wt or mutant NKG2A were plated on cs
coated with anti-CD94 mAb. The cells were permeabilized and stained
with Alexa Fluor 594 (red) tagged anti-SHP-1 or anti-SHP-2 and
Alexa Fluor 488 (green) tagged anti-NKG2A. Fig. 3
, A and B, show
the results of anti-SHP-1 staining for cells transfected with wt,
Y8F/Y40F, Y8F, and Y40F NKG2A. For each type of transfectant, the
staining for the one-third portion of the cells on the side of cs
attachment and the one-third opposite this is shown. The cartoon in
Fig. 3
illustrates the portions of the cells depicted in Fig. 3
, A and B. Cross-linking of CD94/NKG2A receptors
leads to an accumulation of receptor clusters within the portion of the
cells where CD94/NKG2A attaches to the anti-CD94 on the cs (data
not shown; see Fig. 4
). In cells
expressing wt NKG2A, SHP-1 also tends to localize to this region. The
colocalization of SHP-1 with wt NKG2A is shown in the Fig. 3
, CE, top panels. The green color shows
the location of NKG2A in the cells (Fig. 3
C) and the
red staining in the same cells shows the location of SHP-1 (Fig. 3
D). Fig. 3
E shows these same cells with
visualization of SHP-1 and NKG2A merged. The yellow color is indicative
of regions within the cell where SHP-1 and NKG2A are colocalized.
Similar studies done with Alexa Fluor 594-tagged anti-SHP-2 Ab
revealed positive staining, but did not reveal colocalization of this
PTP with CD94/NKG2A. In contrast, there is a marked reduction in the
colocalization of SHP-1 with the Y8F/Y40F mutant (Fig. 3
, upper
middle panels), which cannot be phosphorylated and does not
coprecipitate SHP-1. In contrast, the staining pattern observed with
the Y40F NKG2A mutant approximates that observed for wt NKG2A. Similar
results were obtained with the V6A, I/38A, and V6A/I38A NKG2A mutants
(data not shown). This colocalization of SHP-1 and NKG2A in the portion
of the cells (wt, V6A/I38A, Y40F, V6A, Y40F, I38A) where cs attachment
occurs is more clearly shown in the vertical cross-sections of
representative cells in which both SHP-1 and NKG2A are visualized (Fig. 4
). The cartoon illustrates the stained portions of the cells shown in
Fig. 4
. Furthermore, this figure shows that this colocalization of
SHP-1 and CD94/NKG2A also occurs in NKL cells that naturally express
the CD94/NKG2A receptor.
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Effect of ITIM mutations on the ability of CD94/NKG2A to inhibit mast cell degranulation
It was shown for KIR and other inhibitory receptors that their
ability to inhibit transmission of activation signals requires
coaggregation with the activation receptors (31). We
attached IgE to the culture plate to generate stimulatory signals
through ligation of the Fc
RI receptor present on RBL cells either in
the presence or absence of plate-bound anti-CD94 or anti-NKG2A.
With the maximal concentration of anti-CD94 (20 µg/ml), the
coligation of CD94/NKG2A possessing wt ITIMs simultaneously with the
cross-linking of Fc
RI resulted in a 79 ± 5%
(n = 6) inhibition of serotonin release compared with
cells activated by Fc
RI cross-linking alone (Fig. 5
). In contrast, consistent with its
inability to recruit SHP-1 to sites of receptor ligation, coligation of
the Y8F/Y40F CD94/NKG2A mutant receptor had no effect on
Fc
RI-mediated degranulation. As indicated in Fig. 5
, the V6A
mutation had essentially no impact on the level of inhibition relative
to wt, whereas the double Ala mutant (V6A/I38A) and the other single
Ala mutant (I38A) were slightly less effective than the wt CD94/NKG2A
receptor in inhibition of degranulation. Consistent with the fact that
it was able to colocalize SHP-1, the Y40F NKG2A was 70% as effective
as the wt receptor. The CD94/NKG2A receptor containing the Y8F mutation
was markedly less effective at transducing an inhibitory signal. As can
be seen, the relative ability of the various CD94/NKG2A receptors to
inhibit serotonin release does not change with different Ab
concentrations. The ability of the Y8F mutant to generate a relatively
weak inhibitory signal is consistent with a hint of SHP-1
colocalization (Fig. 4
) and its ability to coprecipitate SHP-1 (Fig. 2
B). However, it is clear from these results that the mutant
NKG2A molecules (Y8F/Y40F and Y8F) that fail to generate CD94/NKG2A
receptors that can efficiently inhibit serotonin release (Fig. 5
) also
show little colocalization with SHP-1 (Figs. 3
and 4
) in comparison to
NKG2A molecules that generate CD94/NKG2A receptors that efficiently
inhibit serotonin release.
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| Discussion |
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RIII receptor
in NK cells differ in that they showed that a single intact ITIM could
mediate a maximal inhibitory signal. In this case, inhibition was
almost completely abrogated by substitution of the Tyr in the
membrane-proximal ITIM, whereas mutation of the membrane-distal ITIM
Tyr had little effect. As each of the above results were obtained in
different experimental systems, the more potent single ITIM signal
obtained by these investigators may be related to the degree of
inhibitory signal required to block different activation signals in
different cell types. Nonetheless, these data clearly indicate that for
KIR the membrane-proximal (N-ter), ITIM is essential for function,
whereas the membrane-distal (C-ter) ITIM plays at best a supportive
role. As with KIR (14, 15, 16, 25, 26), our data show that one
NKG2A ITIM plays a more critical role in CD94/NKG2A inhibitory function
than the other (Fig. 5
A comparison of the human (32) and mouse (33)
NKG2A sequences shown below (ITIMs underlined) offers further support
that the membrane-distal (N-ter) ITIM is most critical for NKG2A
inhibitory function:
![]() |
Previous investigators (14, 15, 16) have shown that the
residues at position Y-2 in ITIMs contribute to the strength of the
inhibitory signal delivered by KIR, but are not an absolute requirement
for inhibition. The V and I residues at this position in the respective
ITIMs were shown to be important for maintaining the association of KIR
and SHP-1 in detergent lysates (14). In agreement with
this, we show that mutations at the Y-2 positions (V6A, I38A, V6A/I38A)
greatly reduce SHP-1 association relative to wt NKG2A (Fig. 2
B). However, these mutations did not impact the ability of
the ITIM Tyr residues to be phosphorylated (Fig. 2
A) and,
despite the reduction in affinity for SHP-1, these mutations had little
effect on the ability of NKG2A to convey inhibitory signals (Fig. 5
) in
agreement with analogous studies on KIR (14). The fact
that SHP-1 association can still be detected with the V6A and I38A
mutant forms of NKG2A suggests that SHP-1 is still mediating the
inhibitory signal for the Y-2 position mutants. This is supported by
the observation that SHP-1 colocalizes with ligated CD94/NKG2A
containing Y-2 mutations as well as it does with wt CD94/NKG2A (Figs. 3
and 4
).
NKG2A clearly reacts with SHP-1 (Figs. 2
B, 3, and 4) and, as
with other ITIM-bearing molecules (1, 27), this
association likely leads to activation of this
PTPase, which mediates its inhibitory effect.
SHP-1 (16) and SHP-2 (36) catalytic activity
is enhanced by the simultaneous interaction of its two SH2 domains with
phosphorylated ITIMs. In agreement, our data (Fig. 5
) show that the
most effective inhibition occurs with NKG2A molecules that retain two
intact phosphorylation sites (wt and the Y-2 mutants). SHP-1 has been
shown to dephosphorylate phosphotyrosine proteins like CD3
in the CD3/TCR and CD16 signaling pathways (37), as well
as tandem SH2 containing protein tyrosine kinases like Syk and ZAP-70
(38, 39), and adaptor proteins like linker for activation
of T cells (LAT) (40) and SLP-76 (41).
This likely accounts for the ability of CD94/NKG2A to inhibit signal
transduction by the Fc
RI receptor in RBL cells, as
phosphorylation of Lyn and Syk are primary events in the
Fc
RI signaling cascade (42).
The domain organization of many signaling proteins facilitates the
segregation of binding, catalytic, and regulatory functions.
Intracellular targeting and enzyme activation are usually intimately
coupled. The mammalian SH2 domain PTPs contain tandem SH2 domains
(N-SH2 and C-ter SH2 domain (C-SH2)) and a single C-ter catalytic
domain (PTPase) (Ref. 43 ; see Fig. 6
A). As well as directing
subcellular localization by binding receptors with specific
phosphorylated amino acid sequences, the two SH2 domains function
together to regulate catalysis (16, 36, 44). The crystal
structure of SHP-2 has been determined, as well as the binding and
functional properties of its individual domains determined (44, 45). In the basal state, the N-SH2 domain of SHP-2 is bound to
the PTPase domain by a series of hydrogen bond
and charge-charge interactions (44, 45, 46, 47), which serve to
inactivate PTPase activity (Fig. 6
A).
In comparing the amino acid sequences of SHP-1 and SHP-2, which share
60% overall sequence identity (47), almost all of the
interactions between the N-SH2 and PTPase domains
of SHP-2 are conserved in SHP-1 (45), suggesting that
these PTPs share a similar mechanism of regulation.
|
It was shown for insulin receptor substrate-1 (36, 44, 51) and Gab1 (52) that the order and orientation of
tandem ITIMs is very important for SHP-2 activation. This observation,
coupled with the facts that N-SH2 interaction with ITIM is critical for
PTP activation (45) and that maximum PTP activation is
achieved only when both N-SH2 and C-SH2 are engaged (16, 36) supports the model for NKG2A ITIM interactions with the
SHP-1 SH2 domains depicted in Fig. 6
C. This model, which
shows the interaction of the NKG2A N-ter and C-ter ITIMs with the N-SH2
and C-SH2 SHP-1 domains, respectively, is supported by the fact that
the Y40F NKG2A mutant retains significantly more inhibitory function
than the Y8F mutant (Fig. 5
). Data obtained with KIR (14)
support an identical orientation (Fig. 6
C). The observations
that for KIR the membrane-proximal ITIM is more critical for function
(14, 26), whereas our data indicate that for NKG2A the
membrane-distal is more critical, are explained by the fact that KIR
and NKG2A are type I and II membrane proteins, respectively. Other
studies that have investigated the interaction between SHP-1/2 and
proteins containing multiple ITIMs also support this view of the
orientation of the interaction (15, 16, 25, 53). In
summary, it is clear from our data on CD94/NKG2A and for that on KIR
ITIMs (14, 15, 16, 25, 26) that one of the two ITIMs present
in these molecules is of primary importance for generating inhibitory
activity and in both cases this is the N-ter ITIM.
| Acknowledgments |
|---|
| Footnotes |
|---|
2 Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. John E. Coligan, Laboratory of Allergic Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Twinbrook II, Room 205, 12441 Parklawn Drive, Rockville, MD 20852. E-mail address: jcoligan{at}niaid.nih.gov ![]()
3 Abbreviations used in this paper: KIR, killer cell Ig-like receptor; SH2, src homology 2; ter, terminal; C-SH2, C-ter SH2 domain; ITIM, immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibition motif; N-SH2, N-ter SH2 domain; RBL, rat basophilic leukemia; PTP, protein tyrosine phosphatase; SHIP, SH2-containing inositol (poly)phosphate 5'-phosphatase; SHP, SH2 domain-bearing tyrosine phosphatase; wt, wild type; RT, room temperature; 3D, three dimensional; cs, coverslip. ![]()
Received for publication February 4, 2002. Accepted for publication May 31, 2002.
| References |
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RIIB. J. Biol. Chem. 275:37357.
, a novel immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibitory motif-bearing protein, recruits SHP-1 upon tyrosine phosphorylation and is paired with the truncated counterpart PILR
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signaling complex in human natural killer (NK) cells. J. Exp. Med. 184:2243.
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