Phosphorylation of Cell Surface Receptors: A Mechanism for Regulating Signal Transduction Pathways

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Abstract
Introduction SPECIFIC receptors, located in the plasma membranes of cells, are crucially involved in mediating the acute and chronic effects of a wide variety of hormones, drugs, growth factors, antigens, and other ligands. Some membrane receptors are involved in transporting various important molecules into the cell by a process known as receptor-mediated endocytosis. An important insight which has emerged from recent research is that both the function and subcellular distribution of many such receptors are dynamically regulated. Phosphorylation/dephosphorylation represents perhaps the most intensively studied reversible covalent modification of enzymes which is known to have regulatory significance (1, 2). Considerably more is known about the kinases than the phosphatases. Only recently has it begun to be appreciated that the function of noncatalytic proteins, such as receptors, may also be regulated in this way. We review here the important plasma membrane receptor systems thus far studied whose function and/or cellular trafficking has been demonstrated to be regulated by phosphorylation. Available information suggests a number of principles which may be generally applicable as well as several testable hypotheses.

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