Antibodies against highly conserved sites in the epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase domain as probes for structure and function

The availability of catalytic sequences was examined using anti-peptide antibodies generated against highly conserved sites in the kinase domain and two nonconserved sequences around autophosphorylation sites in the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) carboxyl-terminal domain. Results revealed that only alphaHRD and alphaDFG had an inhibitory effect on EGFR kinase activity, suggesting that the sites HRD and DFG were involved in catalysis. Except for that found in the HRD site, all epitopes were found to be exposed to antibody binding.