Epidermal growth factor rapidly impairs activation of p34cdc2 protein kinase in HeLa cells at the G2-M boundary.

Epidermal growth factor (EGF) has been shown rapidly to inhibit the transition from G2 phase to mitosis: beyond this transition point the cells are refractory to EGF (Kinzel et al., 1990, Cancer Res., 50:7932-7936). Using synchronized HeLa cells, EGF has now been shown to induce an overall decrease of the histone H1 kinase activity of p34cdc2 after 20 min of treatment, a time course which correlates with the number of cells in metaphase. The kinase level of actively mitotic cells is not altered by EGF. Neither the amount of p34cdc2 protein present nor that of Cyclin B in influenced by EGF, and the formation of the p34cdc2/Cyclin B complex is also unaffected. The use of antiphosphotyrosine antibodies, however, showed that p34cdc2 from cultures treated with EGF was more intensely stained than that of control cells, indicating that EGF treatment prevents the tyrosine dephosphorylation which is required for expression of the protein kinase activity of the complex. Taken together, the results show that EGF in HeLa cells very rapidly prevents the p34cdc2/Cyclin B complex from expressing kinase activity at the G2-M boundary, which appears to be the cause for the inhibition in G2 phase.