Identification of insulin receptor tyrosine residues autophosphorylated in vitro

To identify the autophosphorylation sites on the human insulin receptor (IR), partially purified human IR was incubated in vitro in the presence of insulin and manganese [gamma-32P]ATP so as to achieve near-maximal activation of the histone 2b kinase activity. Approximately 70% of all beta subunit [32P]phosphotyrosine resides on two tryptic peptide segments identified by microsequencing as IR precursor (Ullrich, A., Bell, J. R., Chen, E.-Y., Herrera, R., Petruzelli, L. M., Dull, T. J., Gray, A., Coussens, L., Liao, Y.-C., Tsubokawa, M., Mason, A., Seeburg, P. H., Grunfeld, C., Rosen, O. M., and Ramachandran, J. (1985) Nature 313, 756-761) 1144-1152 (tyrosine at 1146, 1150, 1151, designated peptide 5) and 1315-1329 (tyrosine at 1316, 1322, designated peptide 8), which were recovered in approximately equal amounts. Half of the remaining unidentified [32P]phosphotyrosine residues reside on another tryptic peptide of Mr 4000-5000. Assignment of [32P]phosphotyrosine to specific residues required subdigestion and Edman degradation of 32P peptides covalently coupled to solid supports. Peptide 5 was recovered in triple and double phosphorylated forms in a molar ratio of about 2:1. Tyr-1146 contained 32P in both forms of peptide 5; in the double phosphorylated form, phenylthiohydantoin-[32P]phosphotyrosine was recovered at both Tyr-1150 and Tyr-1151, in a ratio of about 1:2. Thus, the double phosphorylated peptide 5 is presumably a mixture of Tyr-P-1146/1150 and Tyr-P-1146/1151, predominantly the latter. Peptide 8 was recovered only as the double phosphorylated form. We conclude that autophosphorylation of human IR in vitro leads to the phosphorylation of at least 6 of the 13 tyrosine residues on the beta subunit intracellular extension. Five of these tyrosines are clustered in two domains; one domain is in the structurally unique C-terminal tail and contains Tyr-1316 and -1322 which are both phosphorylated. The second domain is located in the segment of the tyrosine kinase region homologous to the major in vitro autophosphorylation site of pp60 v-src and contains Tyr-1146, which is fully phosphorylated, and Tyr-1150 and -1151; although the majority of IR beta subunits exhibit phosphorylation of both tyrosine 1150 and 1151, up to 20-25% of Tyr-1150 remains unphosphorylated at complete kinase activation.