Phosphotyrosines in the killer cell inhibitory receptor motif of NKB1 are required for negative signaling and for association with protein tyrosine phosphatase 1C

• Published in: The Journal of experimental medicine 1996-07, Vol.184 (1), p.295-300
• Main Authors: Fry, A M, Lanier, L L, Weiss, A
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Amino Acid Sequence; Cells, Cultured; Cytoplasm - metabolism; Humans; Intracellular Signaling Peptides and Proteins; Molecular Sequence Data; Phosphotyrosine - metabolism; Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase, Non-Receptor Type 11; Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase, Non-Receptor Type 6; Protein Tyrosine Phosphatases - metabolism; Receptors, Immunologic - physiology; Receptors, KIR; Receptors, KIR3DL1; Signal Transduction; T-Lymphocytes - immunology
• ISSN: 0022-1007; 1540-9538
• DOI: 10.1084/jem.184.1.295

NKB1 is one member of a growing family of killer cell inhibitory receptors (KIR). It is expressed on natural killer (NK) cells and T cells, and has been shown to inhibit cytolytic functions of these cells upon interacting with its ligand, HLA-B (Bw4). We demonstrate here that the cytoplasmic region of NKB1 is capable of inhibiting T cell activation in Jurkat cells. The tyrosine phosphorylation of the NKB1 KIR consensus motif, YxxL(x)26 YxxL, induces an association with the protein tyrosine phosphatase 1C (PTP1C). Importantly, mutation of both tyrosines in the motif abolished the inhibitory functions of NKB1 and abrogated PTP1C association. Mutational analysis of the individual tyrosines suggest that the membrane proximal tyrosine may play a crucial role in mediating the inhibitory signal. These results demonstrate that KIR can not only inhibit cytolytic activity, but can also negatively regulate T cell receptor activation events that lead to downstream gene activation, and further supports a model that implicates PTP1C as a mediator in the KIR inhibitory signal.