Tyrosine 763 of the murine granulocyte colony-stimulating factor receptor mediates Ras-dependent activation of the JNK/SAPK mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway

The receptor for granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) can mediate differentiation and proliferation of hemopoietic cells. A proliferative signal is associated with activation of the ERK mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway. To determine whether other MAPK pathways are activated by G-CSF signalling, we have investigated activation of JNK/SAPK in cells proliferating in response to G-CSF. Here we show that G-CSF and interleukin-3 activate JNK/SAPK in two hemopoietic cell lines. The region of the G-CSF receptor required for G-CSF-induced JNK/SAPK activation is located within the C-terminal 68 amino acids of the cytoplasmic domain, which contains Tyr 763. Mutation of Tyr 763 to Phe completely blocks JNK/SAPK activation. However, the C-terminal 68 amino acids are not required for ERK2 activation. We show that activation of JNK/SAPK, like that of ERK2, is dependent on Ras but that higher levels of Ras-GTP are associated with activation of JNK/SAPK than with activation of ERK2. Two separate functional regions of the G-CSF receptor contribute to activation of Ras. The Y763F mutation reduces G-CSF-induced Ras activation from 30 to 35% Ras-GTP to 10 to 13% Ras-GTP. Low levels of Ras activation (10 to 13% Ras-GTP), which are sufficient for ERK2 activation, require only the 100 membrane-proximal amino acids. High levels of Ras-GTP provided by expression of oncogenic Ras are not sufficient to activate JNK/SAPK. An additional signal, also mediated by Tyr 763, is required for activation of JNK/SAPK.