Effects of 17-hydroxywortmannin on serine/threonine-protein kinases in human blood platelets

Protein kinases are involved in signal transduction in human blood platelets. A number of renaturable protein kinases have increased in vitro activities compared to controls due to covalent modifications when intact platelets are activated by thrombin. The effect of the platelet inhibitor 17-hydroxywortmannin (HWT) on these protein kinases was investigated in intact platelets and in vitro. HWT inhibits the increase in activity of these protein kinases but it does not interact directly with their catalytic subunits. We conclude that HWT blocks a step in signal transduction which is necessary to activate these protein kinases via covalent modifications.