The human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 tax protein confers CBP/p300 recruitment and transcriptional activation properties to phosphorylated CREB.

The human T-cell leukemia virus-encoded oncoprotein Tax is a potent activator of viral transcription. Tax function is strictly dependent upon the cellular transcription factor CREB, and together they bind cAMP response elements within the viral promoter and mediate high-level viral transcription. Signal-dependent CREB phosphorylation at Ser(133) (pCREB) correlates with the activation of transcription. This activation has been attributed to recruitment of the coactivators CBP/p300 via physical interaction with the KIX domain. Here we show that the promoter-bound Tax/pCREB complex strongly recruits the recombinant, purified full-length coactivators CBP and p300. Additionally, the promoter-bound Tax/pCREB (but not Tax/CREB) complex recruits native p300 and potently activates transcription from chromatin templates. Unexpectedly, pCREB alone failed to detectably recruit the full-length coactivators, despite strong binding to KIX. These observations are in marked contrast to those in published studies that have characterized the physical interaction between KIX and pCREB and extrapolated these results to the full-length proteins. Consistent with our observation that pCREB is deficient for binding of CBP/p300, pCREB alone failed to support transcriptional activation. These data reveal that phosphorylation of CREB is not sufficient for CBP/p300 recruitment and transcriptional activation. The regulation of transcription by pCREB is therefore more complex than is generally recognized, and coregulators, such as Tax, likely play a critical role in the modulation of pCREB function.