Rapid turnover of cell-cycle regulators found in Mirk/dyrk1B transfectants.

Mirk/dyrk1B is an arginine-directed protein kinase, which functions as a transcriptional activator and mediates serum-free growth of colon carcinoma cells by an unknown mechanism. We now report that turnover of the cdk inhibitor p27(kip1) and the G(1)-phase cyclin cyclin D1 is enhanced in each of 4 Mirk stable transfectants compared to vector control transfectants and Mirk kinase-inactive mutant transfectants. This enhanced turnover is proteasome-dependent and leads to lower protein levels of both p27(kip1) and cyclin D1. Lower protein levels of the cdk inhibitor p21(cip1) were also observed in the 4 Mirk stable transfectants. Mirk did not alter the activity of a p27(kip1) promoter construct or p27(kip1) mRNA levels by stable expression, indicating that the decrease in p27(kip1) protein levels was due to a posttranscriptional mechanism. These data are consistent with mirk enhancing the expression of some component common to the proteolysis of both p27(kip1) and cyclin D1. Copyright 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.