Abstract
Cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK)–cyclin complexes require phosphorylation on the CDK subunit for full activation of their Ser/Thr protein kinase activity. The crystal structure of the phosphorylated CDK2–CyclinA–ATPγS complex has been determined at 2.6 Å resolution. The phosphate group, which is on the regulatory T-loop of CDK2, is mostly buried, its charge being neutralized by three Arg side chains. The arginines help extend the influence of the phosphate group through a network of hydrogen bonds to both CDK2 and cyclinA. Comparison with the unphosphorylated CDK2–CyclinA complex shows that the T-loop moves by as much as 7 Å, and this affects the putative substrate binding site as well as resulting in additional CDK2–CyclinA contacts. The phosphate group thus acts as a major organizing centre in the CDK2–CyclinA complex.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$189.00 per year
only $15.75 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Sherr, C.J. G1 Phase Progression: Cycling on Cue. Cell 79, 551–555 (1994).
Heichman, K.A. & Roberts, J.M. Rules to Replicate By. Cell 79, 557–562 (1994).
Morgan, D.O. Principles of CDK regulation. Nature 374, 131–134 (1995).
Fisher, R.P. & Morgan, D.O. A Novel Cyclin Associates with MO15/CDK7 to Form the CDK-Activating Kinase. Cell 78, 713–724 (1994).
Mäkelä, T.P. et al. A cyclin associated with the CDK-activating kinase MO15. Nature 371, 254–257 (1994).
Jeffrey, P.D. et al. Mechanism of CDK activation revealed by the structure of a cyclinA-CDK2 complex. Nature 375, 159–161 (1995).
Gould, K.L., Moreno, S., Owen, D.J., Sazer, S. & Nurse, P. Phosphorylation at Thr167 is required for Schizosaccharomyces pombe p34cdc2 function. EMBO 10, 3297–3309 (1991).
Songyang, Z. et al. Use of an oriented peptide library to determine the optimal substrates of protein kinases. Curr. Biol. 4, 973–982 (1994).
Saenger, W. Principles of Nucleic Acid Structure 398 (Springer-Verlag, New York, NY 1984).
Barford, D. & Johnson, L.N. The allosteric transition of glycogen phosphorylase. Nature 340, 609–616 (1989).
Ducommun, B. et al. cdc2 phosphorylation is required for its interaction with cyclin. J. EMBO 10, 3311–3319 (1991)
Desai, D., Wessling, H.C., Fisher, R.P. & Morgan, D.O. Effects of Phosphorylation by CAK on Cyclin Binding by CDC2 and CDK2. Mol. Cell. Biol. 15, 345–350 (1995).
Taylor, S.S. & Radzio-Andzelm, E. Three protein kinase structures define a common motif. Structure 2, 345–355 (1994).
Johnson, L.N., Noble, M.E.M. & Owen, D.J. Active and Inactive Protein Kinases: Structural Basis for Regulation. Cell 85, 149–158 (1996).
Knighton, D.R. et al. Structure of a Peptide Inhibitor Bound to the Catalytic Subunit of Cyclic Adenosine Monophosphate–Dependent Protein Kinase. Science 253, 414–420 (1991).
Knighton, D.R. et al. Crystal Structure of the Catalytic Subunit of Cyclic Adenosine Monophosphate-Dependent Protein Kinase. Science 253, 407–413 (1991).
Nigg, E.A. The substrates of the cdc2 kinase. Sem. Cell Biol. 2, 261–270 (1991).
Zhang, F., Strand, A., Robbins, D., Cobb, M.H. & Goldsmith, E.J. Atomic structure of the MAP kinase ERK2 at 2.3Å resolution. Nature 367, 704–711 (1994).
Whitehouse, S, & Walsh, D.A. Mg • ATP2− -dependent Interaction of the Inhibitor Protein of the cAMP-dependent Protein Kinase with the Catalytic Subunit. J. Biol. Chem. 258, 3682–3692 (1983).
Brünger, A.T. X-PLOR, a system for crystallography and NMR, Version 3.0 Manual (Yale Univ. Press, New Haven, CT 1991).
Tonrud, D.E., Ten Eyck, L.F. & Matthews, B.W. An Efficient General-Purpose Least-Squares Refinement Program Program for Macromolecular Structures. Acta Crystallogr. A43, 489–501 (1987).
Kraulis, P.J. MOLSCRIPT: A program to produce both detailed and schematic plots of protein structures. J. Appl. Crystallogr. 24, 946–950 (1991).
Merrit, E.A. & Murphy, M.E. Raster3D Version 2.0. A Program for Photorealistic Molecular Graphics. Acta Crystallogr. D50, 869–873 (1994).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Russo, A., Jeffrey, P. & Pavletich, N. Structural basis of cyclin-dependent kinase activation by phosphorylation. Nat Struct Mol Biol 3, 696–700 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsb0896-696
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nsb0896-696
This article is cited by
-
OTUD1 promotes hypertensive kidney fibrosis and injury by deubiquitinating CDK9 in renal epithelial cells
Acta Pharmacologica Sinica (2023)
-
Enhancer RNAs stimulate Pol II pause release by harnessing multivalent interactions to NELF
Nature Communications (2022)
-
Allostery governs Cdk2 activation and differential recognition of CDK inhibitors
Nature Chemical Biology (2021)
-
A survival selection strategy for engineering synthetic binding proteins that specifically recognize post-translationally phosphorylated proteins
Nature Communications (2019)
-
Classifying kinase conformations using a machine learning approach
BMC Bioinformatics (2017)