Detection of sarcoma virus family tyrosine kinase activity in coronary arterial tissue

We have observed that the tyrosine kinase inhibitors genistein and tyrphostin can selectively block angiotensin II mediated and vasopressin-mediated contractions in porcine coronary arterial strips, without affecting the action of acetylcholine. Therefore, we assessed the presence of tyrosine kinase activity in the porcine coronary artery tissue, using an assay specific for sarcoma virus (src) related tyrosine kinases. In both membrane and cytosolic fractions of porcine coronary artery, we detected src-related tyrosine kinase activity that could be inhibited by both genistein and tyrphostin. The tyrosine kinase activity in membrane extracts was separated into two peaks by sequential chromatography on hydroxylapatite and Mono-Q columns. Protein in both peaks exhibited Western blot cross-reactivity with anti-src antibodies and contained tyrosine kinase activity that was inhibited by genistein and tyrphostin. We conclude that porcine coronary artery tissue contains src-related tyrosine kinase activity. However, because of the comparatively low sensitivity of the isolated src kinase activity towards genistein and tyrphostin, compared with the much higher sensitivity of the contractile response to these inhibitors, a direct role for c-src in the regulation of contractions elicited by agonists such as angiotensin II and arginine vasopressin cannot yet be assigned.