Tautomycetin is a novel and specific inhibitor of serine/threonine proteinphosphatase type 1, PP1

Here we isolated tautomycetin, TC, and examined its phosphatase inhibitory activity. Recently we have reported that the left-hand moiety of tautomycin , TM, and the right one containing the spiroketal are essentially required for inhibition of protein phosphatase, PP, and induction of apoptosis, resp ectively. TC is structurally almost identical to TM except that TC is lacki ng the spiroketal, which has the potential apoptosis-inducing activity. TC specifically inhibited PP1 activity, IC50 values for purified PP1 and PP2A enzymes being 1.6 and 62 nM, respectively, whereas the IC50 values of TM we re 0.21 and 0.94 nM, respectively. These results demonstrate that TC is the most specific PPI inhibitor out of over 40 species of natural phosphatase inhibitors reported, strongly suggesting that TC is a novel powerful tool t o elucidate the physiological roles of PP1 in various biological events. (C ) 2001 Academic Press.