Protein phosphorylation substrates in normal and neoplastic squamous epithelia of the human upper aero-digestive tract.

Protein phosphorylation was studied in crude and in protein kinase C (Pk-C)-enriched preparations from squamous cell carcinomas and normal mucosa of the human upper aero-digestive tract. In crude soluble preparations from neoplastic mucosa we found a 5-fold higher basal endogenous phosphorylation when compared to normal mucosa. In particulate fractions the increase was 3-fold. SDS-PAGE and autoradiography of phosphorylated proteins in crude soluble tumor extracts showed bands corresponding to proteins with apparent molecular weights of 18, 37, 40-42, 52, 60, 62 and 90 kDa. In normal mucosa the phosphorylation of these proteins was very low or absent, except for the proteins with molecular weights of 40-42 and 52-55 kDa. Addition of Ca2+ or Ca2+/phospholipids to the reaction mixture caused phosphorylation of additional proteins with apparent molecular weight of 45-50 kDa in soluble preparations of tumors. Cyclic AMP or cGMP had no significant effect on the phosphorylation of endogenous proteins. In the partially purified, Pk-C-enriched fractions the phosphorylation in the presence of Ca2+/phospholipids was distinctly higher in tumors when compared to the phosphorylation observed in normal mucosa, and some phosphorylation substrates were detected only in tumor tissue. In order to find out whether the elevated basal phosphorylation was due to an endogenous activation of protein kinases, different inhibitors of serine/threonine protein kinases were tested. These inhibitors included: heat-stable cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase (Pk-A) inhibitor, Pk-A inhibitor peptide (Wiptide), heparin and the Pk-C inhibitors peptide 19-36 and H-7. None of these inhibitors had any significant effect on the basal phosphorylation. In conclusion, our results show the existence of endogenous phosphorylation substrates in human squamous cell carcinomas from the upper aerodigestive tract, and indicates that there is a significantly higher basal and Pk-C specific phosphorylation of endogenous substrates in tumors compared to normal mucosa. This may be of importance for the transformation and altered growth regulation in epithelial tumors.