Steroid hormones may regulate autophosphorylation of adenosine-3',5'-monophosphate-dependent protein kinase in target tissues.

A protein in rat liver cytosol whose phosphorylation was regulated by hydrocortisone administration in vivo was tentatively identified as the regulatory subunit of a cAMP-dependent protein kinase. Evidence that this protein, whose phosphorylation was regulated by steroid and cyclic AMP, is the regulatory subunit of type-II cAMP-dependent protein kinase included: (a) co-purification of the steroid/cAMP-regulated protein and the regulatory subunit during DEAE-cellulose, Sepharose 4B, and hydroxylapatite column chromatography, (b) co-migration of the two proteins on dodecyl sulfate/polyacrylamide slab gels during the various steps of purification, (c) specific adsorption of the two proteins onto 8(6-aminohexylamino)-cAMP--Sepharose 4B, and (d) a similar pattern of distribution of the two proteins in various subcellular fractions prepared from rat liver homogenate. By each of these criteria, it was found that the steroid/cAMP-regulated protein present in rat liver cytosol behaved identically with the regulatory subunit of type-II cAMP-dependent protein kinase in that tissue. Results qualitatively similar to those obtained in the study of the effect of hydrocortisone on rat liver were also obtained in studies of the effects of other steroid hormones on other target tissues in the rat, including uterus (17 beta-estradiol), ventral prostate and seminal vesicle (testosterone), and epididymal fat pad (hydrocortisone). The tentative identification of the steroid/cAMP-regulated protein as the regulatory subunit of the type-II cAMP-dependent protein kinase in the cytosol of several tissues indicates that autophosphorylation of the regulatory subunit of type-II protein kinase may be regulated by the steroid hormones. The fact that three different classes of steroid hormones appear to affect the phosphorylation of the regulatory subunit of type-II cAMP-dependent protein kinase in their target tissues raises the possibility that this common biochemical action may play an important role in the mechanism of steroid hormone action. It is also possible that this effect of the steroid hormones may provide a molecular basis for some of the known physiological interactions of the steroid hormones with those hormones that act through using cAMP as a second messenger.