Protein Kinase Byr2 Is a Target of Ras1 in the Fission Yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe

Conservation of the structure and function of Ras proteins has been observed in a variety of eukaryotic organisms. However, the nature of their downstream effectors appears to be quite divergent; adenylyl cyclase and a protein kinase Raf-1, which do not share any structural homology with each other, are effectors of Ras in the budding yeast and in higher organisms, respectively. We show here that a protein kinase Byr2, which has been known to act downstream of Ras1 in a mating pheromone signal transduction system of Schizosaccharomyces pombe, binds directly to Ras proteins in a GTP-dependent manner. The region of Byr2 responsible for the Ras binding was mapped by a gene deletion analysis to its N-terminal segment of 206 amino acid residues, which does not possess any significant homology with the other effectors of Ras. The affinity of the Byr2 N terminus for Saccharomyces cerevisiae Ras2 was determined by measuring its activity to competitively inhibit Ras-dependent adenylyl cyclase activity and found to be comparable with those of yeast adenylyl cyclase and human Raf-1, with a dissociation constant (Kd) of about 1 nM. Furthermore, Byr2 inhibited a Ras GTPase-activating activity of Ira2, a S. cerevisiae homologue of neurofibromin. These results indicate that Byr2 is an immediate downstream target of Ras1 in S. pombe.