Computational Phosphosite-Specific Network Analysis of YES1 Y426 Reveals Cancer-Associated Phosphorylation Patterns.

Background: YES1 is an Src family non-receptor tyrosine-protein kinase that regulates cell growth, migration, survival, and oncogenic signaling. Although YES1 activation mechanisms and substrates have been extensively studied, its phosphosite-specific regulation across diverse biological contexts remains poorly understood.

Methods: We performed a large-scale integrative analysis of 3825 publicly available human mass spectrometry-based phosphoproteomic datasets to map YES1 phosphorylation events. Co-modulation, co-occurrence, evolutionary conservation, and disease-association analyses were conducted to characterize the functional and clinical relevance of site-specific YES1 phosphorylation.

Results: Y426 emerged as the predominant YES1 phosphosite across diverse biological conditions, localized within the activation loop of the kinase domain and conserved across Src family kinases. Co-modulation analysis identified 421 positively and 102 negatively associated phosphosites enriched in biological processes related to cell cycle regulation, transcription, cytoskeletal remodeling, apoptosis, and carcinogenesis. Among these high-confidence protein phosphosites, we identified 24 binary interactors, 5 upstream regulators, and 8 candidate downstream substrates. Comparison with DisGeNet cancer biomarkers showed overlap between YES1-associated phosphoproteomic signatures and site-specific oncogenic markers across multiple cancers, such as breast cancer, colorectal cancer, leukemia, and lung adenocarcinoma.

Conclusions: This study provides a systems-level, phosphosite-focused view of YES1 signaling and supports a central regulatory role for Y426 within global phosphoregulatory and cancer-associated networks.