Abstract
Cellular signaling through protein tyrosine phosphorylation is well established in mammalian cells. Although lacking the classic tyrosine kinases present in humans, plants have a tyrosine phospho-proteome that rivals human cells. Here we report a novel plant tyrosine phosphatase from Arabidopsis thaliana (AtRLPH2) that, surprisingly, has the sequence hallmarks of a phospho-serine/threonine phosphatase belonging to the PPP family. Rhizobiales/Rhodobacterales/Rhodospirillaceae-like phosphatases (RLPHs) are conserved in plants and several other eukaryotes, but not in animals. We demonstrate that AtRLPH2 is localized to the plant cell cytosol, is resistant to the classic serine/threonine phosphatase inhibitors okadaic acid and microcystin, but is inhibited by the tyrosine phosphatase inhibitor orthovanadate and is particularly sensitive to inhibition by the adenylates, ATP and ADP. AtRLPH2 displays remarkable selectivity toward tyrosine-phosphorylated peptides versus serine/threonine phospho-peptides and readily dephosphorylates a classic tyrosine phosphatase protein substrate, suggesting that in vivo it is a tyrosine phosphatase. To date, only one other tyrosine phosphatase is known in plants; thus AtRLPH2 represents one of the missing pieces in the plant tyrosine phosphatase repertoire and supports the concept of protein tyrosine phosphorylation as a key regulatory event in plants.