Regulation of signal transduction.

1. A systematic study is reported on the control of 1-phosphatidylinositol 4-kinase (PI kinase) and PI 4-phosphate 5-kinase (PIP kinase), enzymes of the phosphatidylinositol phosphorylation pathway which leads to the production of second messengers. IP3 and DAG. In liver of normal male, adult, fed Wistar rats the steady state activity of PI kinase was 0.5 +/- 0.01 and that of PIP kinase was 0.046 +/- 0.003 nmol/hr/mg protein. The concentration of IP3 was 1.8 +/- 0.1 pmol/mg protein. 2. That the two kinases have short half-lives was observed in starvation. where in the rat liver or bone marrow activities rapidly decreased and on refeeding were restored in a day. Injection to rats of the protein synthetic inhibitor, cycloheximide, yielded t1/2 = 80 min for the two enzymes in bone marrow and t1/2 = 80 min in liver. 3. Linkage of the signal transduction enzymes with proliferation was shown by the high activities as compared to liver of these enzymes in rat organs of high cell renewal capacity, e.g., thymus, bone marrow, spleen and testes. 4. Linkage with malignant proliferation was indicated by the observation that in rat hepatomas the enzyme activities increased 5- to 9-fold and were highest in rapidly growing hepatoma 3924A (29- and 45-fold). 5. In human primary ovarian carcinoma PI and PIP kinase activities were elevated 4.4 and 2.9-fold, respectively, and in OVCAR-5 cells, 32- and 11-fold, respectively. Similar increases were observed in MDA-MB-435 human breast carcinoma cells in comparison with normal breast parenchymal cells. 6. The linkage of signal transduction enzyme activities with malignant proliferation was also observed in experiments when human breast carcinoma cells were plated in flasks and expressed their proliferative capacity in the log phase. PI and PIP kinase activities steadily and coordinately increased to a peak 11-fold rise in mid-log phase. In late log and plateau phases the kinase activities gradually declined to the starting level. Similar observations were made for the two enzymes in human ovarian carcinoma OVCAR-5 cells and in rat hepatoma 3924A cells in tissue culture. 7. In animals injected with cycloheximide the bone marrow PI and PIP kinase activities exhibited t1/2 = 0.12 hr, the shortest decay rate in comparison with 8 enzymes of purine and pyrimidine biosynthesis with t1/2 = 0.6 to 4.3 hr. 8. Injection of tiazofurin decreased PI and PIP kinase activities in the bone marrow with t1/2 = 82 and 78 min, respectively.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)