Abstract
A recently developed stable isotope dilution liquid chromatography-multiple reaction/mass spectrometry method to quantify focal adhesion kinase (FAK) activation loop phosphorylation was used to study endogenous Src kinase activity. This revealed that bis-phosphorylated pTyr576/Tyr577-FAK was a biomarker of Src activity and inactivation in vitro and in cell culture. Mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) expressing endogenous Src family kinases contained 65% unmodified Tyr576/Tyr577, 33% mono-phosphorylated-pTyr576-FAK, and 6% bis-phosphorylated-pTyr576/pTyr577-FAK. In contrast, MEFs expressing oncogenic Y529FSrc contained 38% unmodified Tyr576/Tyr577-FAK, 29% mono-phosphorylated-pTyr576-FAK, and 19% bis-phosphorylated-pTyr576/pTyr577-FAK. This new method has made it possible to accurately determine the absolute amounts of FAK phosphorylation that occur after Src inhibition in cell culture and in vitro with increasing concentrations of the Src inhibitor N-(5-chloro-1,3-benzodioxol-4-yl)-7-[2-(4-methylpiperazin-1-yl)ethoxy]-5-(tetrahydro-2H-pyran-4-yloxy)quinazolin-4-amine (AZD0530). Phosphorylation of FAK at Tyr576/Tyr577 was inhibited by AZD0530 in a dose-dependent manner both in cell culture and in vitro. However, there was a substantial difference in the ability of AZD0530 to inhibit Src that was constitutively activated in a cellular context (IC50 = 2.12 μM) compared with the isolated enzyme (IC50 = 0.14 μM). When normal MEFs and Y529FSrc-expressing MEFs were treated with pervanadate (a global phosphatase inhibitor), pTyr576/pTyr577-FAK accounted for almost 60% of the total FAK present in the cells. This suggests that activation loop phosphorylation is regulated by tyrosine phosphatases. These results confirm that FAK phosphorylation is a useful biomarker of Src inhibition in vivo. The accuracy and specificity of stable isotope dilution liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry methodology offers significant advantages over current immunochemical approaches for monitoring Src activity.
Footnotes
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This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health National Cancer Institute [Grant R01-CA95586]; the National Institutes of Health National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences [Grant P30-ES013508]; the National Institutes of Health National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute [Grant T32-HL007954]; and the National Institutes of Health National Institute of General Medical Sciences [Grant GM49882].
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ABBREVIATIONS: c-Src, cellular Src; FAK, focal adhesion kinase; LC-MRM/MS, liquid chromatography-multiple reaction monitoring/mass spectrometry; MEF, mouse embryonic fibroblast; AZD0530, N-(5-chloro-1,3-benzodioxol-4-yl)-7-[2-(4-methylpiperazin-1-yl)ethoxy]-5-(tetrahydro-2H-pyran-4-yloxy)quinazolin-4-amine; DMSO, dimethyl sulfoxide; SKI-606, bosutinib; CGP-77675, substituted 5,7-diphenyl-pyrrolo(2,3-d)pyrimidine.
- Received October 5, 2008.
- Accepted December 19, 2008.
- The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
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