Differential phosphorylation activities of CDK-activating kinases in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Activation of cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs) requires phosphorylation of a threonine residue within the T-loop by a CDK-activating kinase (CAK). Here we isolated an Arabidopsis cDNA (CAK4At) whose predicted product shows a high similarity to vertebrate CDK7/p40(MO15). Northern blot analysis showed that expressions of the four Arabidopsis CAKs (CAK1At-CAK4At) were not dependent on cell division. CAK2At- and CAK4At-immunoprecipitates of Arabidopsis crude extract phosphorylated CDK and the carboxy-terminal domain (CTD) of the largest subunit of RNA polymerase II with different preferences. These results suggest the existence of differential mechanisms in Arabidopsis that control CDK and CTD phosphorylation by multiple CAKs.