The intracellular microenvironment in host cell-specific phosphorylation of SNT1 by the FGFR1 tyrosine kinase.

The phosphorylation of the fibroblast growth factor receptor (FGFR) kinase substrate SNT1 (also called FGFR substrate 2, FRS2) by FGFR tyrosine kinases is both host cell- and receptor isotype-specific. To study the determinants of the host cell-specific phosphorylation of SNT1 by FGFR1 tyrosine kinase, we constructed a chimeric receptor FGFR2IIIb/R1 that consisted of an FGFR2IIIb ligand-binding ectodomain and an FGFR1 tyrosine kinase domain. The chimeric FGFR2IIIb/R1 kinase mediated robust phosphorylation of SNT1 immediately after transfection in mouse 3T3 cells where the FGFR1 kinase was residential, and in proliferative aged prostate tumor epithelial cells (DTE-R1/100) that ectopically expressed FGFR1 kinase. This is in contrast to the fact that the robust phosphorylation of SNT1 by ectopic FGFR1 kinase is an acquisition property in DTE premalignant prostate epithelial cells, which normally do not express FGFR1. The data suggest that the microenvironment of intracellular, rather than components in the extracellular compartment, of host cells is important in permitting FGFR1 kinase to strongly phosphorylate SNT1. Together with our previous data that the acquisition of SNT1 phosphorylation activity is concurrent with the acquisition of mitogenic activity of FGFR1 in prostate epithelial cells, the results here further demonstrate that the phosphorylation of SNT1 is host cell specific and that alterations induced by chronic exposure to ectopic FGFR1 kinase are involved in acquisition of SNT1 phosphorylation activity to the ectopic FGFR1 in prostate epithelial cells.