Oncostatin M, also known as OSM, is a protein that in humans is encoded by the OSM gene. OSM is a pleiotropic cytokine that belongs to the interleukin 6 group of cytokines. Of these cytokines it most closely resembles leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) in both structure and function. As yet poorly defined, it is proving important in liver development, haematopoeisis, inflammation and possibly CNS development. It is also associated with bone formation and destruction. OSM signals through cell surface receptors that contain the protein gp130. The type I receptor is composed of gp130 and LIFR, the type II receptor is composed of gp130 and OSMR.
Discovery, isolation and cloning The human form of OSM was originally isolated in 1986 from the growth media of PMA treated U-937 histiocytic lymphoma cells by its ability to inhibit the growth of cell lines established from melanomas and other solid tumours. A robust protein, OSM is stable between pH2 and 11 and resistant to heating for one hour at 56 °C. A partial amino acid sequence allowed the isolation of human OSM cDNA and subsequently genomic clones. The full cDNA clone of hOSM encodes a 252 amino acid precursor, the first 25 amino acids of which functions as a secretory signal peptide, which on removal yields the soluble 227 amino acid pro-OSM. Cleavage of the C-terminal most 31 residues at a trypsin like cleavage site yields the fully active 196 residue form. Two potential N-glycosylation sites are present in hOSM both of which are retained in the mature form. The 196 residue OSM is the predominant form isolated form a variety of cell lines and corresponds to a glycoprotein of 28 KDa, although the larger 227 residue pro-OSM can be isolated from over transfected cells. Pro-OSM, although an order of magnitude less efficacious in growth inhibition assays, displays similar binding affinity toward cells in radio ligand binding assays. Thus, post translational processing may play a significant role in the in vivo function of OSM. Like many cytokines OSM is produced from cells by de novo synthesis followed by release through the classical secretion pathway. However, OSM can be released from preformed stores within polymorphonuclear leukocytes on degranulation. It still remains unclear how OSM is targeted to these intracellular compartments.
Structure
Primary sequence analysis of OSM allocates it to the gp130 group of cytokines. OSM most resembles LIF, bearing 22% sequence identity and 30% similarity. Incidentally the genes for OSM and LIF occur in tandem on human chromosome 22. Both LIF and OSM genes have very similar gene structures sharing similar promoter elements and intron-exon structure. These data suggest that OSM and LIF arose relatively recently in evolutionary terms by gene duplication. Of the five cysteine residues within the human OSM sequence four participate in disulfide bridges, one of these disulfide bonds namely between helices A and B is necessary for OSM activity. The free cysteine residue does not appear to mediate dimerisation of OSM. The three-dimensional structure of human OSM has been solved to atomic resolution, confirming the predicted long chain four helix bundle topology. Comparing this structure with the known structures of other known LC cytokines shows it to be most closely related to LIF (RMSD of 2.1 Å across 145 equivalent Cα). A distinctive kink in the A helix arises from departure of the classical alpha helical H-bonding pattern, a feature shared with all known structures of LIFR using cytokines. This "kink" results in a different special positioning of one extreme of the bundle to the other, significantly affecting the relative positioning of site III with sites I and II (see:Receptor recruitment sites)
Receptors Receptors for OSM can be found on a variety of cells from a variety of tissues. In general cells derived from endothelial and tumour origins express high levels of OSM receptors, whereas cells of Haematopoietic origin tend to express lower numbers. Scatchard analysis of radio ligand binding data from 125I-OSM binding to a variety of OSM responsive cell lines produced curvilinear graphs which the authors interpreted as the presence of two receptor species, a high affinity form with an approximate dissociation constant Kd of 1-10 pM, and a low affinity form of 0.4-1 nM. Subsequently it was shown that the presence of gp130 alone was sufficient to reproduce the low affinity form of the receptor, and co-transfection of COS-7 cells with LIFR and gp130 produced a high affinity receptor. However further experiments demonstrated that not all actions of OSM could be replicated by LIF, that is certain cells that are irresponsive to LIF would respond to OSM. This data hinted to the existence of an additional ligand specific receptor chain which led to the cloning of OSMR. These two receptor complexes, namely gp130/LIFR and gp130/OSMR, were termed the type I and type II Oncostatin-M receptors. The ability of OSM to signal via two receptor complexes conveniently offers a molecular explanation to the shared and unique effects of OSM with respect to LIF. Thus common biological activities of LIF and OSM are mediated through the type I receptor and OSM specific activities are mediated through the type II receptor. The murine homologue of OSM was not discovered until 1996, whereas the murine OSMR homologue was not cloned until 1998. Until recently, it was thought that mOSM only signals through the murine type II receptor, namely through mOSMR/mgp130 complexes, because of a low affinity for the type I receptor counterpart. However, it is now known that, in bone at least, mOSM is able to signal through both mOSMR/mgp130 and mLIFR/mgp130.
Receptor recruitment sites Oncostatin M triggers the formation of receptor complexes by binding to receptors via two binding sites named site II and site III. The nomenclature of these sites is taken by direct analogy to Growth Hormone, probably the best studied of four helix bundle cytokines. Site II consists of exposed residues within the A and C helices, and confers binding to gp130. The crucial residues of site III are located at the N-terminal extremity of the D-helix. This site is the most conserved amongst IL-6 like cytokines. OSM contains a conserved Phenylalanine and Lysine residues (F160 and K163). Cytokines that recruit LIFR via site 3 i.e. LIF, OSM, CNTF and CT-1 possess these conserved phenylalanine and lysine residues and is known as the FK motif.
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