An encephalitozoon cuniculi ortholog of the RNA polymerase II carboxyl-terminal domain (CTD) serine phosphatase Fcp1

Fcp1 is an essential protein serine phosphatase that dephosphorylates Ser2 or Ser5 of the RNA polymerase II carboxyl-terminal domain (CTD) heptad repeat Y(1)S(2)P(3)T(4)S(5)P(6)S(7). The CTD of the microsporidian parasite Encephalitozoon cuniculi consists of 15 heptad repeats, which approximates the minimal CTD length requirement for cell viability in yeast. Here we show that E. cuniculi encodes a minimized 411-aa Fcp1-like protein (EcFcp1), which consists of a DxDx(T/V) phosphatase domain and a BRCA1 carboxyl terminus (BRCT) domain but lacks the large N- and C-terminal domains found in fungal and metazoan Fcp1 enzymes. Nonetheless, EcFcp1 can function in lieu of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Fcp1 to sustain yeast cell growth. Recombinant EcFcp1 is a monomeric enzyme with intrinsic phosphatase activity against nonspecific (p-nitrophenyl phosphate) and specific (CTD-PO(4)) substrates. EcFcp1 dephosphorylates CTD positions Ser2 and Ser5 with similar efficacy in vitro. We exploit synthetic CTD Ser2-PO(4) and Ser5-PO(4) peptides to define minimized substrates for EcFcp1 and to illuminate the importance of CTD primary structure in Ser2 and Ser5 phosphatase activity.     

Identification of phosphorylation sites in the repetitive carboxyl-terminal domain of the mouse RNA polymerase II largest subunit

The largest subunit of eukaryotic RNA polymerase II contains a carboxyl-terminal domain (CTD) which is comprised of repetitive heptapeptides with a consensus sequence Tyr1-Ser2-Pro3-Thr4-Ser5-Pro6-Ser7. We demonstrate here that the mouse CTD expressed in and purified from Escherichia coli can be phosphorylated in vitro by a p34cdc2/CDC28-containing CTD kinase from mouse ascites tumor cells. The product of this reaction, a phosphorylated form of the CTD, contains phosphoserine and phosphothreonine, but not phosphotyrosine. The same phosphoamino acid content is observed in the in vivo phosphorylated CTD from a mouse cell line. Synthetic peptides with naturally occurring non-consensus heptapeptide sequences can also be phosphorylated by CTD kinase in vitro. Phosphoamino acid analysis of these non-consensus heptapeptides together with direct sequencing of a phosphorylated heptapeptide reveals that serines (or threonines) at positions two and five are the sites phosphorylated by mouse CTD kinase. Thus, the -Ser(Thr)-Pro- motif common to p34cdc2/CDC28-containing protein kinases is the recognition site for mouse CTD kinase.