Human Sos1: a Guanine Nucleotide Exchange Factor for Ras that Binds to GRB2

A human complementary DNA was isolated that encodes a widely expressed protein, hSos1, that is closely related to Sos, the product of the Drosophila son of sevenless gene. The hSos1 protein contains a region of significant sequence similarity to CDC25, a guanine nucleotide exchange factor for Ras from yeast. A fragment of hSos1 encoding the CDC25-related domain complemented loss of CDC25 function in yeast. This hSos1 domain specifically stimulated guanine nucleotide exchange on mammalian Ras proteins in vitro. Mammalian cells overexpressing full-length hSos1 had increased guanine nucleotide exchange activity. Thus hSos1 is a guanine nucleotide exchange factor for Ras. The hSos1 interacted with growth factor receptor-bound protein 2 (GRB2) in vivo and in vitro. This interaction was mediated by the carboxyl-terminal domain of hSos1 and the Src homology 3 (SH3) domains of GRB2. These results suggest that the coupling of receptor tyrosine kinases to Ras signaling is mediated by a molecular complex consisting of GRB2 and hSos1.