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Mol. Cell. Biol., Jun 1995, 2983-2992, Vol 15, No. 6
MJ Cismowski, GM Laff, MJ Solomon and SI Reed
The Saccharomyces cerevisiae gene KIN28 is a member of the cyclin-
dependent kinase (CDK) family. The Kin28 protein shares extensive sequence
identity with the vertebrate CDK-activating kinase MO15 (Cdk7), which
phosphorylates CDKs in vitro on a critical threonine residue. Kin28 and
MO15 have recently been found to copurify with the transcription factor IIH
(TFIIH) holoenzyme of yeast and human cells, respectively. Although TFIIH
is capable of phosphorylating the C- terminal domain (CTD) of RNA
polymerase II, it has been unclear whether Kin28 is the physiologically
relevant CTD kinase or what role CTD phosphorylation plays in
transcription. In this study, we used a thermosensitive allele of KIN28 and
a hemagglutinin epitope-tagged Kin28 protein to investigate Kin28 function
in transcription and in the cell cycle. We show that Kin28 acts as a
positive regulator of mRNA transcription in vivo and possesses CTD kinase
activity in vitro. However, Kin28 neither regulates the phosphorylation
state of the yeast cell cycle CDK, Cdc28, nor possesses CDK-activating
kinase activity in vitro. We conclude that Kin28 is a strong candidate for
the physiological CTD kinase of S. cerevisiae and that Kin28 function is
required for mRNA transcription.
Copyright © 1995, American Society for Microbiology
KIN28 encodes a C-terminal domain kinase that controls mRNA transcription in Saccharomyces cerevisiae but lacks cyclin-dependent kinase-activating kinase (CAK) activity
Department of Molecular Biology, Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California 92037, USA.
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