Src homology 2 (SH2) domain found in Carboxyl-Terminal Src Kinase (Csk)
Both the C-terminal Src kinase (CSK) and CSK-homologous kinase (CHK) are members of the CSK-family of protein tyrosine kinases. These proteins suppress activity of Src-family kinases (SFK) by selectively phosphorylating the conserved C-terminal tail regulatory tyrosine by a similar mechanism. CHK is also capable of inhibiting SFKs by a non-catalytic mechanism that involves binding of CHK to SFKs to form stable protein complexes. The unphosphorylated form of SFKs is inhibited by CSK and CHK by a two-step mechanism. The first step involves the formation of a complex of SFKs with CSK/CHK with the SFKs in the complex are inactive. The second step, involves the phosphorylation of the C-terminal tail tyrosine of SFKs, which then dissociates and adopt an inactive conformation. The structural basis of how the phosphorylated SFKs dissociate from CSK/CHK to adopt the inactive conformation is not known. The inactive conformation of SFKs is stabilized by two intramolecular inhibitory interactions: (a) the pYT:SH2 interaction in which the phosphorylated C-terminal tail tyrosine (YT) binds to the SH2 domain, and (b) the linker:SH3 interaction of which the SH2-kinase domain linker binds to the SH3 domain. SFKs are activated by multiple mechanisms including binding of the ligands to the SH2 and SH3 domains to displace the two inhibitory intramolecular interactions, autophosphorylation, and dephosphorylation of YT. By selective phosphorylation and the non-catalytic inhibitory mechanism CSK and CHK are able to inhibit the active forms of SFKs. CSK and CHK are regulated by phosphorylation and inter-domain interactions. They both contain SH3, SH2, and kinase domains separated by the SH3-SH2 connector and SH2 kinase linker, intervening segments separating the three domains. They lack a conserved tyrosine phosphorylation site in the kinase domain and the C-terminal tail regulatory tyrosine phosphorylation site. The CSK SH2 domain is crucial for stabilizing the kinase domain in the active conformation. A disulfide bond here regulates CSK kinase activity. The subcellular localization and activity of CSK are regulated by its SH2 domain. In general SH2 domains are involved in signal transduction. They typically bind pTyr-containing ligands via two surface pockets, a pTyr and hydrophobic binding pocket, allowing proteins with SH2 domains to localize to tyrosine phosphorylated sites.
Jiyao W et al.(2023). "The conserved domain database in 2023.",