Conversion of graded phosphorylation into switch-like nuclear translocation via autoregulatory mechanisms in ERK signalling.

ABSTRACT: The phosphorylation cascade in the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) pathway is a versatile reaction network motif that can potentially act as a switch, oscillator or memory. Nevertheless, there is accumulating evidence that the phosphorylation response is mostly linear to extracellular signals in mammalian cells. Here we find that subsequent nuclear translocation gives rise to a switch-like increase in nuclear ERK concentration in response to signal input. The switch-like response disappears in the presence of ERK inhibitor, suggesting the existence of autoregulatory mechanisms for ERK nuclear translocation involved in conversion from a graded to a switch-like response. In vitro reconstruction of ERK nuclear translocation indicates that ERK-mediated phosphorylation of nucleopori

SUBMITTER: Shindo Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4736105 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature