Gene regulation by tyrosine kinases: src protein activates various promoters, including c-fos.

A promoter of the nuclear proto-oncogene fos was activated by cotransfection with the viral src gene. Ability to transactivate the c-fos promoter was dependent on tyrosine kinase activity, because (i) src mutants which have reduced tyrosine kinase activity due to mutation of Tyr-416 to Phe showed lower promoter activation, (ii) pp60c-src mutants which have increased tyrosine kinase activity due to mutation of Tyr-527 to Phe also augmented c-fos promoter induction, and (iii) mutation in the ATP-binding site of pp60v-src strongly suppressed c-fos promoter activation. Tyrosine kinase activity alone, however, was not sufficient for promoter activation, because of pp60v-src mutant which lacked its myristylation site and consequently membrane association showed no increased c-fos promoter activation. Both the tyrosine kinase- and membrane-association-defective mutants were also unable to induce transformation. Therefore, phosphorylation of membrane-associated substrates appears to be required for both gene expression and cellular transformation by the src protein. Two regions of the c-fos promoter located between positions -362 and -324 and positions -323 and -294 were responsive to src stimulation. We believe that protein tyrosine phosphorylation represents an important step of signal transduction from the membrane to the nucleus.