A novel 200 kDa plasma membrane glycoprotein with high basal tyrosine kinase activity in tumour cells

We have detected a tyrosine phosphorylated 200 kDa glycoprotein (gp200) on the surface of two tumour cells of neural origin, namely A1235 glioma and A172 glioblastoma. gp200 (polypeptide mass of 165-170 kDa) has all the structural features of a growth factor receptor and it appears to display high basal tyrosine kinase activity, a characteristic associated with transforming proteins. Another interesting feature of gp200 is that it is immunologically highly related to the EGF receptor (polypeptide mass of 135 kDa), a member of the erb-B family of proteins; however, it lacks EGF binding activity. gp200 also differs from all other EGF-receptor-related oncogenic proteins, namely erb-B-2, erb-B-3 and erb-B-4 gene products, and hence appears to be yet another member of the erb-B family of proteins. This is further strengthened by the fact that both gp200 and the EGF receptor are also recognized by a conformation-specific anti-peptide antibody to the cytoplasmic domain of the beta-type PDGF receptor. In the EGF- and the PDGF receptors, this peptide epitope is cryptic and receptor phosphorylation unmasks this site [Panneerselvam K, Reitz H, Khan S A, and Bishayee S (1995) J Biol Chem 270, 7975-7979] indicating that this epitope might be important in biological message transmission. In this context, the expression of a novel EGF-receptor-related 200 kDa protein with high basal kinase activity in certain tumour cells of neural origin and the fact that it contains an important peptide epitope suggest its possible role in normal and abnormal cell growth.