Protein phosphorylation controls many aspects of cell fate and is often deregulated in pathological conditions. Several recent findings have provided an intriguing insight into the spatial regulation of protein phosphorylation across different subcellular compartments and how this can be finely orchestrated by specific kinases and phosphatases. In this review, the focus will be placed on (i) th...

In the present study, we identified protein phosphatases dephosphorylating centrins previously phosphorylated by protein kinase CK2. The following phosphatases known to be present in the retina were tested: PP1, PP2A, PP2B, PP2C, PP5, and alkaline phosphatase. PP2C α and β were capable of dephosphorylating P-Thr-centrin1 most efficiently. PP2Cδ was inactive and the other retinal phosphatases al...

Mycobacterium tuberculosis secretes a large number of polypeptides with broad biological and immunological functions. We describe here the characterization of a 28-kDa acid phosphatase of M. tuberculosis (SapM) localized to the culture filtrate. The mature protein demonstrated biochemical characteristics similar to those of the bacterial nonspecific acid phosphatases. However, SapM yielded sign...

Almost all eukaryotic proteins are subject to post-translational modifications during mitosis and cell cycle, and in particular, reversible phosphorylation being a key event. The recent use of high-throughput experimental analyses has revealed that more than 70% of all eukaryotic proteins are regulated by phosphorylation; however, the mechanism of dephosphorylation, counteracting phosphorylatio...

Structural studies of the two families of protein phosphatases responsible for dephosphorylating serine and threonine residues have revealed that, although these families are unrelated in sequence, the architecture of their catalytic domains is remarkably similar and distinct from the protein tyrosine phosphatases. The diversity of structure within the PPP and PPM families is generated by regul...

SIGNIFICANCE Tyrosine phosphorylation and associated protein tyrosine phosphatases are gaining prominence as critical mechanisms in the regulation of fundamental processes in a wide variety of bacteria. In particular, these phosphatases have been associated with the control of the biosynthesis of capsular polysaccharides and extracellular polysaccharides, critically important virulence factors ...

In virtually every cell, neutral lipids are stored in cytoplasmic structures called lipid droplets (LDs) and also referred to as lipid bodies or lipid particles. We developed a rapid high-throughput assay based on the recovery of quenched BODIPY-fluorescence that allows to quantify lipid droplets. The method was validated by monitoring lipid droplet turnover during growth of a yeast culture and...

Phosphorylation by protein kinases has been established as a key factor in the regulation of cytoskeletal structure. However, little is known about the role of protein phosphatases in cytoskeletal regulation. To assess the possible functions of protein phosphatases in this respect, we studied the effects of the phosphatase inhibitors calyculin A, okadaic acid, and dinophysistoxin 1 (35-methylok...

Protein tyrosine phosphatases, SH2 and PTB domains are crucial elements for cellular signal transduction and regulation. Much effort has been directed towards elucidating their specificity in the past decade using a variety of approaches. Combinatorial library methods have contributed significantly to the understanding of substrate and ligand specificity of phosphoprotein recognizing domains. T...

Recent work has highlighted the important role played by protein phosphatase complexes in the regulation of mitosis from yeast to mammals. There have been important advances in defining the roles of the protein serine/threonine phosphatases PP1 and PP2A and the dual specificity protein tyrosine phosphatases CDC25 and Cdc14. Three independent studies defined a regulatory role for PP2A in the con...