Differential Kinetics and Inhibition of Purified Recombinant Tyrosine Kinase 2 (TYK-2) and Its Catalytic Domain JH-1

Thomas      L. Emmons; Ann      D. Wrightstone; Eric      T. Baima; Stacy      Brown; Cynthia      D. Sommers; Jeffrey      L. Hirsch; Lyle      E. Pegg; Robin      A. Weinberg; H.      David Fischer; Arthur      J. Wittwer; Alfredo      G. Tomasselli

Abstract

The Janus kinase (JAK) family consists of four members: JAK-1, -2, -3 and tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK-2). Recent work suggests that cytokine signaling through TYK-2 may play a critical role in a number of inflammatory processes. We recently described the purification and characterization of phosphorylated isoforms of the TYK-2 kinase domain (TYK-2 KD) and its high resolution 3D structure in the presence of inhibitors. We now report the expression and a two-step purification procedure for the doubly tagged full-length construct, H6-FL-TYK-2-FLAG, and examine its properties compared to those of TYK-2 KD. In the presence of ATP and a peptide substrate, H6-FL-TYK-2-FLAG showed a marked lag in phosphopeptide product formation, while TYK-2 KD showed no such lag. This lag could be eliminated by ATP pretreatment, suggesting that the H6-FL-TYK-2-FLAG enzyme was activated by phosphorylation. The potencies of several nanomolar inhibitors were similar for TYK-2 KD and H6-FL-TYK-2-FLAG. However, these same inhibitors were about 1000 times less potent inhibiting the autophosphorylation of H6-FL-TYK-2-FLAG than they were inhibiting the phosphorylation of a peptide substrate modeled after the activation loop sequence of TYK-2. This intriguing result suggests that autophosphorylation and, thus, activation of H6-FL-TYK-2-FLAG is relatively insensitive to inhibition and that present inhibitors act to inhibit TYK-2 subsequent to activation. Inhibition of TYK-2 autophosphorylation may represent a new area of investigation for the JAK family.

Keywords: Activation, autophosphorylation, IC50, inhibition, CP-690550, PF-956980

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