A family of mitogen-activated protein kinase-related proteins interacts in vivo with activator protein-1 transcription factor.

The activator protein-1 (AP-1) transcription factor modulates expression of genes involved in growth regulation, differentiation, and neoplastic transformation. Several mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAP kinases) as well as other kinases phosphorylate c-Jun and c-Fos in vitro and are postulated to control AP-1 activity. However, since many protein kinases phosphorylate substrates in vitro with which they have no association in vivo, we sought evidence for interaction in vivo between AP-1 and MAP kinase proteins. We now report detection of an association in vivo of MAP kinase-related proteins with c-Jun and AP-1 dimers by peptide mapping and two-dimensional electrophoretic analyses of proteins co-immunoprecipitated with AP-1 antigens. Extracellular signal-regulated kinase-2 and several apparently novel MAP kinase-related proteins are among the species that bind to AP-1. The large number of MAP kinase-related proteins associated with AP-1 implicates them on an important gene regulation pathway. Combinatorial association between MAP kinase-related proteins and AP-1 dimers could potentially create numerous distinct complexes that could regulate diverse genes.