Generation of protein kinase Ck1α mutants which discriminate between canonical and non-canonical substrates

Protein kinase CK1 denotes a family of pleiotropic serine/threonine protein kinases implicated in a variety of cellular functions. Typically, CK1 acts as a 'phosphate-directed' kinase whose targeting is primed by a single phosphorylated side chain at position n - 3 or n - 4 relative to serine/threonine, but increasing evidence is accumulating that CK1 can also engage some of its substrates at sites that do not conform to this canonical consensus. In the present paper, we show that CK1 alpha phosphorylates with the same efficiency phosphopeptides primed by a phosphoserine residue at either n - 3 [pS(- 3)] or n - 4 [pS(- 4)] positions. The phosphorylation efficiency of the pS(-4) peptide, and to a lesser extent that of the pS(- 3) peptide, is impaired by the triple mutation of the lysine residues in the K(229)KQK(232)stretch to alanine residues, promoting 40-fold and 6-fold increases of K. respectively. In both cases, the individual mutation of Lys(232) is as detrimental as the triple mutation. A kinetic alanine-scan analysis with a series of substituted peptide substrates in which the priming phosphoserine residue was effectively replaced by a cluster of four aspartate residues was also consistent with a crucial role of Lys(232) in the recognition of the acidic determinant at position n - 4. In sharp contrast, the phosphorylation of catenin and of a peptide including the non-canonical 8-catenin site (Ser(45)) lacking acidic/phosphorylated determinants upstream is not significantly affected by mutations in the KKQK stretch. These data provide a molecular insight into the structural features that underlie the site specificity of CK1 alpha and disclose the possibility of developing strategies for the preferential targeting of subsets of CK1 substrates.