Submitted on August 1, 2006
Revised on October 30, 2006
Accepted on November 5, 2006
Label-free kinase profiling using phosphate-affinity polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis
Emiko Kinoshita-Kikuta, Yuri Aoki, Eiji Kinoshita, and Tohru Koike
Department of Functional Molecular Science, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Hiroshima 734-8551
Corresponding Author: kinoeiji{at}hiroshima-u.ac.jp
Herein, we describe three applications of label-free kinase profiling using a novel type of phosphate-affinity polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. The phosphate-affinity site is a polyacrylamide-bound dinuclear Mn2+ complex which enables the mobility shift detection of phosphorylated proteins from their nonphosphorylated counterpart. The first application is in vitro kinase activity profiling for the analysis of varied phosphoprotein isotypes in phosphorylation status. The activity profiles of six kinds of kinases, glycogen synthase kinase-3
, cyclin-dependent kinase 5/p35, protein kinase A, mitogen-activated protein kinase, casein kinase II, and calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II, were determined using a substrate protein, Tau, which has a number of phosphorylation sites. Each kinase demonstrated characteristic multiple electrophoresis migration bands up-shifted from the nonphosphorylated Tau due to differences in the phosphorylation sites and stoichiometry. The second application is in vivo kinase activity profiling for the analysis of protein phosphorylation involved in intracellular signal transduction. The time-course changes in the epidermal growth-factor-induced phosphorylation levels of Shc and MAPK in A431 cells were visualized as highly up-shifted migration bands by subsequent immunoblotting with anti-Shc and anti-MAPK antibodies. The third application is in vitro kinase inhibition profiling for the quantitative screening of kinase-specific inhibitors. The inhibition profile of a tyrosine kinase, Abl (a histidine-tagged recombinant mouse Abl kinase), was determined using the substrate Abltide-GST (a fusion protein consisting of a specific substrate peptide for Abl and glutathione S-transferase) and the approved drug Glivec (an ATP competitor). In the kinase assay, the slower migration band, monophosphorylated Abltide-GST, increased time-dependently, whereas the faster migration band, nonphosphorylated Abltide-GST, decreased. The dose-dependent inhibition of Glivec was determined by a change in the ratio of the faster and slower migration bands, which showed an IC50 value of 1.6
M in the presence of 0.10 mM ATP.