Structure and regulation of the CDK5-p25(nck5a) complex.

CDK5 plays an indispensable role in the central nervous system, and its deregulation is involved in neurodegeneration. We report the crystal structure of a complex between CDK5 and p25, a fragment of the p35 activator. Despite its partial structural similarity with the cyclins, p25 displays an unprecedented mechanism for the ...
regulation of a cyclin-dependent kinase. p25 tethers the unphosphorylated T loop of CDK5 in the active conformation. Residue Ser159, equivalent to Thr160 on CDK2, contributes to the specificity of the CDK5-p35 interaction. Its substitution with threonine prevents p35 binding, while the presence of alanine affects neither binding nor kinase activity. Finally, we provide evidence that the CDK5-p25 complex employs a distinct mechanism from the phospho-CDK2-cyclin A complex to establish substrate specificity.
Mesh Terms:
Amino Acid Sequence, Animals, Binding Sites, COS Cells, Crystallography, X-Ray, Cyclin-Dependent Kinase 5, Cyclin-Dependent Kinases, Humans, Immunoblotting, Models, Molecular, Molecular Sequence Data, Nerve Tissue Proteins, Peptides, Phosphorylation, Protein Binding, Protein Conformation, Protein Structure, Tertiary, Recombinant Proteins, Sequence Alignment
Mol. Cell
Date: Sep. 01, 2001
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