THE ASSOCIATION OF THE PROTEIN-TYROSINE KINASES P56(LCK) AND P60(FYN)WITH THE GLYCOSYL PHOSPHATIDYLINOSITOL-ANCHORED PROTEINS THY-1 AND CD48 IN RAT THYMOCYTES IS DEPENDENT ON THE STATE OF CELLULAR ACTIVATION

Cell surface glycoproteins anchored to the plasma membrane via glycosy lphosphatidylinositol (GPI) structures, and hence having no cytoplasmi c domains, can nevertheless transmit activation signals in lymphocytes . By immunoprecipitation from detergent lysates and in vitro immune co mplex kinase reactions the GPI-anchored molecules Thy-1 and CD48 are s hown to be associated with multimolecular complexes of phosphoproteins including the protein tyrosine kinases p56lck and p60fyn in both rat and mouse thymocytes. Moreover, the kinase activity associated with Th y-1 on rat thymocytes is shown to be dependent on the activation state of the cells, with stimulation by the lectin, concanavalin A, produci ng a marked decrease in Thy-1-associated kinase activity. In such acti vated cells, there is an increased association of kinase activity with CD48, but this may be explained in terms of increased surface express ion of CD48 and of increased total kinase activity. Additional phospho proteins of 85, 36 and 32 kDa were consistently seen as components of the complexes.