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Molecular and Cellular Biology, August 2004, p. 6947-6956, Vol. 24, No. 16
0270-7306/04/$08.00+0 DOI: 10.1128/MCB.24.16.6947-6956.2004
Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.
Centre de recherche sur les mécanismes du fonctionnement cellulaire, Département de biologie, Faculté des sciences, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada J1K 2R1
Received 5 March 2004/ Returned for modification 5 April 2004/ Accepted 21 May 2004
A high incidence of breast and ovarian cancers has been linked to mutations in the BRCA1 gene. BRCA1 has been shown to be involved in both positive and negative regulation of gene activity as well as in numerous other processes such as DNA repair and cell cycle regulation. Since modulation of the RNA polymerase II carboxy-terminal domain (CTD) phosphorylation levels could constitute an interface to all these functions, we wanted to directly test the possibility that BRCA1 might regulate the phosphorylation state of the CTD. We have shown that the BRCA1 C-terminal region can negatively modulate phosphorylation levels of the RNA polymerase II CTD by the Cdk-activating kinase (CAK) in vitro. Interestingly, the BRCA1 C-terminal region can directly interact with CAK and inhibit CAK activity by competing with ATP. Finally, we demonstrated that full-length BRCA1 can inhibit CTD phosphorylation when introduced in the BRCA1/ HCC1937 cell line. Our results suggest that BRCA1 could play its ascribed roles, at least in part, by modulating CTD kinase components.
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