| Abstract: | ZAP-70 is critical for T cell receptor (TCR) signaling. Tyrosine to phenylalanine mutations of Y315 and Y319 in ZAP-70 suggest these residues function to recruit downstream effector molecules, but mutagenesis and crystallization studies reveal that these residues also play an important role in autoinhibition ZAP-70. To address the importance of the scaffolding function, we generated a zap70 mutant mouse (YYAA mouse) with Y315 and Y319 both mutated to alanines. These YYAA mice reveal that the scaffolding function is important for normal development and function. Moreover, the YYAA mice have many similarities to a previously identified ZAP-70 mutant mouse, SKG, which harbors a distinct hypomorphic mutation. Both YYAA and SKG mice have impaired T cell development and hyporesponsiveness to TCR stimulation, markedly reduced numbers of thymic T regulatory cells and defective positive and negative selection. YYAA mice, like SKG mice, develop rheumatoid factor antibodies, but fail to develop autoimmune arthritis. Signaling differences that result from ZAP-70 mutations appear to skew the TCR repertoire in ways that differentially influence propensity to autoimmunity versus autoimmune disease susceptibility. By uncoupling the relative contribution from T regulatory cells and TCR repertoire during thymic selection, our data help to identify events that may be important, but alone are insufficient, for the development of autoimmune disease.Signal transduction by the TCR plays a critical role in T cell development and in the protective and pathological responses mediated by mature T cells. The repertoire of mature T cells and the discrimination of self from nonself are largely determined within the thymus through TCR-dependent processes known as positive and negative selection. It is generally thought that quantitative or qualitative differences in TCR signaling determine the binary decision between positive or negative selection (Starr et al., 2003). Likewise, whether a productive mature T cell response will be made is dictated by signaling events induced by the TCR.ZAP-70, a Syk family tyrosine kinase that associates with the TCR CD3 and ζ subunits, plays a critical role in TCR signaling in immature thymocyte selection and in mature T cell responses (Chan et al., 1992). ZAP-70 contains two N-terminal SH2 domains that mediate its association with doubly phosphorylated immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motifs (ITAMs) after their phosphorylation by Lck. The ZAP-70 C-terminal catalytic domain phosphorylates the downstream adaptor molecules LAT and SLP-76 that play critical roles in T cell development and in T cell responses (Horejsí et al., 2004). Interdomain B bridges the C-terminal SH2 and the kinase domains and contains three tyrosine residues (Y292, Y315, and Y319) that are inducibly phosphorylated. Based on tyrosine to phenylalanine mutations, we and others have previously shown that phosphorylation of Y292 may exert a negative regulatory effect on ZAP-70, perhaps by functioning as a docking site for c-Cbl (Lupher et al., 1997; Meng et al., 1999; Rao et al., 2000). In contrast, phenylalanine mutations of Y315 and Y319 suggested that these sites positively regulate ZAP-70 function by recruiting Vav1 and Lck, respectively (Straus et al., 1996; Wu et al., 1997; Pelosi et al., 1999). These sites have also been reported to bind c-Crk (Gelkop and Isakov, 1999) and phospholipase Cγ1 (Williams et al., 1999). Thus, in addition to its catalytic activity, ZAP-70 may have an important scaffolding role in recruiting downstream effector molecules.Surprisingly, in addition to this scaffolding role, we recently discovered that Y315 and Y319 play an important role in regulating ZAP-70 kinase activity. Whereas mutation of both residues to phenylalanine potently inhibits ZAP-70 function, deletion of interdomain B or mutation of these sites to alanine relieves an autoinhibitory conformation and renders the kinase relatively Lck-independent (Brdicka et al., 2005). Stabilizing the autoinhibited ZAP-70 conformation with the YYFF mutations (Y315F and Y319F) allowed the crystallization of full-length ZAP-70. The crystal structure, together with targeted mutagenesis studies, suggest that the Y315 and Y319 stabilize the autoinhibited conformation of the ZAP-70 kinase through hydrophobic interactions involving the aromatic rings of the Y315 and Y319 residues with residues in the inter-SH2 domain (Interdomain A) and the C-terminal lobe of the catalytic domain (Deindl et al., 2007). Comparison of the alignment of the SH2 domains in the autoinhibited conformation to the ITAM-bound SH2 domains (Hatada et al., 1995) further suggests that ZAP-70 undergoes a conformational change upon binding to a doubly phosphorylated ITAM, which allows Y315 and Y319 to be more accessible for phosphorylation. Y315 and Y319 appear to be Lck phosphorylation sites and their phosphorylation stabilizes the active “open” ZAP-70 conformation and prevents the kinase from returning to the autoinhibited conformation (Brdicka et al., 2005; Deindl et al., 2007; Levin et al., 2008). What remains unclear is the relative importance of their scaffolding function in effector molecule recruitment.Two independent groups have generated knockin mice (Magnan et al., 2001) and transgenic mice (Gong et al., 2001) to study the in vivo individual contributions of Y315 and Y319 of ZAP-70 to signal transduction and to T cell development. However, those studies involved mutation of either Y315 or Y319 to phenylalanine, which would have helped stabilize the autoinhibited conformation and could have resulted in attenuated T cell signaling and consequent alteration of positive and negative selection. TCR-mediated calcium increase is greatly diminished in ZAP-70−/− mice expressing the Y319F transgenic mice whereas the Y315F mutation has a modest effect on calcium responses. Consistent with results from transgenic mice, phosphorylation of phospholipase C γ1, but not Vav1, is reduced in the Y315F knockin mice. These results suggest that Y315 and Y319 contribute to efficient generation of second messengers involved in thymic selection. However, these studies did not take into account the notion that the tyrosine to phenylalanine mutations might also stabilize the autoinhibitory conformation of ZAP-70 rather than only affecting the recruitment of downstream effectors.To address the relative importance of the scaffolding function of these residues, we generated a knockin ZAP-70 mutant strain with Y315 and Y319 simultaneously mutated to alanine residues. By creating a YYAA ZAP-70 knockin mouse we were able to study the contribution of the scaffolding function of these sites without the confounding issue of autoinhibition in the context of phenylalanine mutants. These YYAA mice showed many of the features of a previously identified spontaneous mutant mouse called SKG. The SKG mouse has a syndrome that shares features with human rheumatoid arthritis, including autoimmune arthritis and rheumatoid factor production (Sakaguchi et al., 2003). SKG mice have a single point mutation in the C-terminal SH2 domain of ZAP-70 that results in attenuated TCR signaling and aberrant positive and negative selection. Results suggested that the autoimmune arthritis could be caused by expansion of autoreactive CD4+ T cells that have escaped negative selection. Interestingly, unlike SKG mice, although the YYAA mice have similar defects in positive and negative selection in TCR transgenic systems and can be induced to develop rheumatoid factor antibodies, they do not develop autoimmune arthritis. Quantitative assessment of negative selection in response to endogenous superantigens suggests that YYAA and SKG mice have distinct TCR repertoires that could account for the increased susceptibility of both lines of mice to develop rheumatoid factor antibodies, but interestingly, only SKG mice develop arthritis. Our findings demonstrate the importance of phosphorylation of Y315 and Y319 in ZAP-70 as binding sites for key effector molecules. As well, these findings stress the importance of these sites for proper regulation of TCR signaling and for normal T cell repertoire selection and peripheral T cell function in resistance to autoimmune disease susceptibility. |
