A new tyrosine-phosphorylated 97-kDa adaptor protein mediates interleukin-2-induced association of SHP-2 with p85-phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase in human T lymphocytes.

Interleukin (IL)-2 is a major cytokine that controls differentiation and proliferation of T lymphocytes. In this report we characterize an as yet unidentified 97-kDa protein that is a major tyrosine kinase substrate in IL-2-stimulated cells. pp97 was found to associate with the p85.p110 phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase complex, the Src homology 2 (SH2) domain-containing tyrosine phosphatase SHP-2, and the adaptor molecules CrkL and Grb2. We demonstrate that these interactions are directly mediated through the SH2 domains of CrkL, p85, and SHP-2 and through the SH3 domains of Grb2. pp97 was found to mediate the IL-2-induced interaction between p85 and both a phosphorylated and a non-phosphorylated form of SHP-2. In this study we show that pp97 behaves as a docking protein and associates with at least CrkL, p85, and SHP-2 in the same multimolecular complex. We thus characterized pp97 as a new tyrosine kinase substrate in human T lymphocytes which might play a central role in the regulation of several pathways activated by IL-2.