Tyrosine phosphorylation of platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule-1 (PECAM-1, CD31) in mechanically stimulated vascular endothelial cells.

Fluid flow triggers signal transducing events, modulates gene expression, and remodels cytoskeletal structures in vascular endothelial cells (ECs). However, the primary steps of mechanoreception are still unknown. We have recently reported that a glycoprotein is rapidly tyrosine-phosphorylated in bovine ECs exposed to fluid flow or osmotic shock. Here were cloned a 3.4 kb cDNA encoding this protein and found that this was bovine PECAM-1. The tyrosine-phosphorylation level of PECAM-1 immunoprecipitated from mechanically stimulated bovine or human ECs increased. The PECAM-1 phosphorylation was not induced by reagents that triggered Ca2+ mobilization in ECs. An autophosphorylatable band comigrating with c-Src was co-immunoprecipitated with anti-PECAM-1, and c-Src phosphorylated and bound to a GST fusion protein containing the PECAM-1 cytoplasmic domain. A spliced mRNA form lacking amino acid residues 703-721 in the cytoplasmic domain was also expressed in bovine ECs, c-Src neither phosphorylated nor bound to the fusion protein containing the spliced PECAM-1 cytoplasmic domain which lacked one (Tyr 713) of the six tyrosine residues in the PECAM-1 cytoplasmic domain. These results suggest that the YSEI motif containing Tyr 713 is the Src phosphorylation/binding site. Our study is the first demonstration of inducible tyrosine phosphorylation of PECAM-1 and suggests involvement of PECAM-1 and Src family kinases in the sensing/signal transduction of mechanical stimuli in ECs.