Ciliary neurotrophic factor/leukemia inhibitory factor/interleukin 6/oncostatin M family of cytokines induces tyrosine phosphorylation of a common set of proteins overlapping those induced by other cytokines and growth factors.

Ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF), leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF), oncostatin M (OSM), and interleukin-6 (IL6) compose a family of distantly related cytokines that initiate signaling by inducing either homodimerization of the "beta" signal transducing receptor component gp130 (in the case of IL6) or heterodimerization between gp130 and the gp130-related LIFR beta (in the case of CNTF, LIF, and OSM); dimerization of beta receptor components in turn activates members of the Jak/Tyk family of receptor-associated tyrosine kinases. Here we report that CNTF, LIF, OSM, and IL6 induce most of the same protein tyrosine phosphorylations, regardless of the cell type assayed or whether they initiate signaling by inducing homo- or heterodimerization of beta components. Although several of the protein tyrosine phosphorylations induced by the CNTF/LIF/OSM/IL6 family of factors may correspond to novel tyrosine kinase targets, we have been able to demonstrate the involvement of known signaling molecules, such as phospholipase C gamma, phosphoinositol 3-kinase, phosphotyrosine phosphatase (PTP1D), pp120, SHC, GRB2, STAT91, Raf-1, and the mitogen-activated protein kinases ERK1 and ERK2, revealing substantial convergence not only between the pathways activated by this cytokine family and other cytokines, but with pathways previously known to be activated only by factors that utilize receptor tyrosine kinases. Our data suggest the beta receptor components can form complexes with some of the signaling proteins identified and may play some role in their recruitment.