Structural and functional characterization of the interaction between alphaB-Cryst...
| Grant number: | 14/17630-0 |
| Support type: | Regular Research Grants |
| Duration: | May 01, 2015 - April 30, 2017 |
| Field of knowledge: | Biological Sciences - Biophysics |
| Principal Investigator: | Fernando Alves de Melo |
| Grantee: | Fernando Alves de Melo |
| Home Institution: | Instituto de Biociências, Letras e Ciências Exatas (IBILCE). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de São José do Rio Preto. São José do Rio Preto , SP, Brazil |
| Assoc. researchers: | Antonio José da Costa Filho ; Fátima Pereira de Souza ; Marcelo Andrés Fossey |
Abstract
Cell signaling is regulated by enzymatic activities through reversible phosphorylation of amino acids side chains. In this way, Protein Tyrosine Kinases (PTKs) rule the regulation upon cell proliferation, cell-cycle, growth, migration and differentiation. In many cases kinases and phosphatases, like Shp2, work together. Once phosphorylated, PTKs do the recruitment of partners like Grb2, Shc, Ras, Sos, etc., to build up complexes known as ESCs (Early Signaling Complexes) that activate specific signaling pathways inside cells. FGFRs are key regulators of many of these signaling process which aberrances in its activity causes a variety of human cancer and developmental defects. Early studies have shown that Grb2 is an important regulator of FGFR2 and Shp2 by preventing respectively kinase and phosphatase activities before extra-cellular stimulus. Phosphorylation of Grb2 by FGFR2 abrogates its binding to the kinase, resulting in up-regulation of both FGFR2's kinase and Shp2's phosphatase activity. Dephosphorylation of Grb2 by Shp2 rescued the FGFR2-Grb2 complex. Grb2 is a constitutive controller over the mutually dependent activities of FGFR2 and Shp2 so it is a potential target to drugs development. Therefore, it is important to characterize the interactions basis among those proteins to understand the process that start cancer development. The objective is to create knowledge on both FGFR2 and Shp2 activities over Grb2 and on the mutual interaction between FGFR2 and Shp2. For this study recombinant proteins will be expressed and purified, so calorimetry and fluorescence techniques will be used to access kinetics parameters from FGFR2 and Shp2 activities over Grb2 and also possible conformational changes induced by the interaction among those proteins. These studies will contribute to establish basis to get more efficient drugs that will play as inhibitors on those signaling pathways that leads to cancer development. (AU)