Phosphorylation of a clathrin light chain of coated vesicles in the presence of histones.

Coated vesicles isolated from bovine brain contained a protein kinase(s) which phosphorylated phosvitin and an endogenous protein with a molecular weight (Mr) of 48,000. A clathrin light chain (Mr 33,000), a constituent of the coat structure of the coated vesicles, was also phosphorylated when histone was added to the incubation medium. The clathrin light chain was phosphorylated with GTP as well as ATP as the phosphoryl donor. The phosphorylation reaction was inhibited by heparin. An additional 1.35 mol of PO4/mol was incorporated into the clathrin light chain which had contained approximately 1.5 mol of PO4/mol when the coated vesicles were incubated with ATP, Mg2+, and histone. Phosphoamino acid determination revealed the presence of 32P-phosphorylated threonine and serine in phosvitin, threonine in the endogenous protein (Mr 48,000) and serine in the clathrin light chain (Mr 33,000).