The activation of growth factor receptor tyrosine kinases leads to tyrosine phosphorylation of many intracellular proteins which are thought to play crucial roles in growth factor signaling pathways. We previously showed that tyrosine phosphorylation of a 115-kDa protein is rapidly induced in cells treated with hepatocyte growth factor. To clarify the structure and possible function of the 115-kDa protein (designated Hrs for hepatocyte growth factor-regulated tyrosine kinase substrate), we purified this protein from B16-F1 mouse melanoma cells by anti-phosphotyrosine immunoaffinity chromatography and determined its partial amino acid sequences. On the basis of the amino acid sequences, we molecularly cloned the cDNA for mouse Hrs. The nucleotide sequence of the cDNA revealed that Hrs is a novel 775-amino-acid protein with a putative zinc finger domain that is structurally conserved in several other proteins. This protein also contained a proline-rich region and a proline-and glutamine-rich region. The expression of Hrs mRNA was detected in all adult mouse tissues tested and also in embryos. To analyze the Hrs cDNA product, we prepared a polyclonal antibody against bacterially expressed Hrs. Using this antibody, we showed by subcellular fractionation that Hrs is localized to the cytoplasm; we also showed that that tyrosine phosphorylation of Hrs is induced in cells treated with epidermal growth factor or platelet-derived growth factor. These results suggest that Hrs plays a unique and important role in the signaling pathway of growth factors.Peptide growth factors exert pleiotropic biological effects on a variety of cell types (9). These effects include mitogenesis, enhanced motility, differentiation, metabolism, and morphogenesis. Signals for all these effects are mediated through specific receptors expressed on the cell surface. Growth factor receptors possess intrinsic tyrosine kinase activity in the cytoplasmic domains, and the binding of growth factors to the receptors enhances the kinase activity, leading to tyrosine phosphorylation of many intracellular proteins in addition to the receptors themselves (65, 70). Many of these tyrosine kinase substrates, such as phospholipase C-␥ (37, 39), ras 27), the p85 regulatory subunit of phosphatidylinositol 3Ј-kinase (7,26,66), Shc (52), Nck (36,48), and Src family tyrosine kinases (8, 42), possess Src homology 2 (SH2) domains and bind tightly to the phosphotyrosinecontaining sequences in the autophosphorylated receptors through their SH2 domains (4, 31). On the other hand, proteins that do not have an SH2 domain are also tyrosine phosphorylated in growth factor-stimulated cells. They include cRaf serine/threonine kinase (43), mitogen-activated protein kinase (56), insulin receptor substrate-1 (64), and several proteins identified by the use of anti-phosphotyrosine antibody affinity chromatography, such as the Src substrate p120 (24), eps8 (11), and eps15 (12). Thus, the growth factor signaling pathways are considered to involve the tyrosine phosphorylation of both S...