Patent Application: US-44189007-A

Abstract:
the present patent application discloses a method of identifying or validating a compound that modulates the phosphorylation - dependent activity of a target protein or protein complex , where the target protein or protein complex activity is regulated by phosphorylation , as well as the use of identified compounds for the production of a pharmaceutical preparation especially for the treatment of cancer , insulin resistance and diabetes .

Description:
previous work suggested a molecular model to explain the molecular mechanism of activation of agc kinases by hm phosphorylation . we concluded that the essence of the mechanism involves a ligand binding to the regulatory site , and therefore we here further studied the allosteric mechanism of regulation and explored if the essential aspects of the regulation could be mimicked by small molecules , which , in the future , could be developed into orally available drugs . based on the molecular model of activation of agc kinases and in silico analysis of the hm / pif - pocket structure , we have now developed small molecular weight compounds which activate pdk1 . mutagenesis at the centre of the hm / pif - pocket ( e . g . leu155glu and val127leu ) blocked the effect of the compounds on pdk1 , suggesting that the hm / pif - pocket is the target site for compounds according to general formula 1 , especially compound 1 . the ability of compounds to activate pdk1 also required the positive charge from arg131 , which forms part of the associated phosphate binding site that physiologically interacts with the phosphate within the hm phosphorylation site from substrates ( collins et al ., 2005 ). the activation by compound 1 required the presence of the free carboxylate group , since compound 2 , possessing a methyl - ester instead , lost the ability to bind and activate pdk1 . these results supported the notion that compound 1 interacted with the hm / pif - pocket and with the positive charge from arg131 residue which forms the adjacent phosphate binding site . this was further supported by surface plasmon resonance experiments which showed that the small compounds can displace the binding between pdk1 and the hm polypeptide piftide . in further agreement with this notion , compound 1 did not affect the activity of a pdk1 chimera which has the sequence of pdk1 linked to the c - terminal 48 residues from prk2 that includes the 24 aminoacids present in piftide . in addition , the compounds were able to block pdk1 phosphorylation of its substrates s6k and sgk , which depend on the docking to the hm / pif - pocket of pdk1 for efficient phosphorylation and activation . therefore , we conclude that the ability of compound 1 to activate pdk1 is related to its ability to interact specifically with the hm / pif - pocket and the associated phosphate binding site of pdk1 . on the other hand , the specificity of the effect of compounds on pdk1 was verified by synthesizing compound analogues . some of these analogues where inactive and unable to interact with pdk1 ; such marked structure - activity relationship argues for selectivity of compounds and helps to define the requirements to activate pdk1 . finally , we probed the atp binding site conformational change induced by p - hm peptides in solution and verified that the effect of compound 1 was identical to the effect induced by p - hm polypeptides on pdk1 , suggesting that they both brought about a similar conformational change , which effects on the atp binding site . altogether our results provide extensive evidence that small compounds can modulate the conformational inactive - active transition of pdk1 by targeting the hm / pif - pocket regulatory site . to our knowledge , this is the first report of a rational development of small compounds that mimic a conformational transition physiologically induced by phosphorylation . our work was based on the matured model that described the molecular mechanism of activation by hm phosphorylation in agc kinases ( biondi , 2004 ; newton , 2003b ; pearl and barford , 2002 ). the actual success in the development of these compounds strengthens the validity of the models used as a base of our hypothesis and further highlights the hm / pif - pocket as a minimum requirement for the modulation of activity . in a general agc kinase , the hm phosphorylation triggers the intra - molecular binding of the p - hm to the hm / pif - pocket and the contiguous phosphate binding site . in the specific case of pdk1 , it binds the hm of its substrates inter - molecularly in a phosphorylation dependent manner . thus , the conformational changes induced by phosphorylation of agc kinases can be simplified to a system where a ligand binds to the hm / pif - pocket regulatory site in a phosphorylation - dependent manner . analogous mechanisms of intra - molecular and inter - molecular regulation of protein kinases have been described . we have found that the mechanism of regulation of gsk3 by n - terminal phosphorylation involves the intra - molecular binding of the n - terminal phosphorylated residues to a phosphate binding site in the catalytic domain , implying a phosphorylation - dependent intra - molecular docking ( dajani et al ., 2001 ; frame et al ., 2001 ), which resembles the regulatory c - terminal hm phosphorylation in agc kinases ( yang et al ., 2002 ). in striking similarity with pdk1 , the regulatory phosphate binding site in the catalytic domain of gsk3 is required for the inter - molecular binding of substrates in a phosphorylation - dependent manner ( frame et al ., 2001 ). another example is the mechanism of inhibition of tyr kinases by c - terminal tail tyr phosphorylation . in this case , the c - terminal tyr phosphorylation prompts the intra - molecular binding to the src homology ( sh2 ) domain ( sicheri et al ., 1997 ; xu et al ., 1997 ). this binding triggers the docking of a trp residue from the linker region into the small lobe of the catalytic domain , which then stabilizes an inactive conformation ( gonfloni et al ., 1997 ). interestingly , the site of binding of the trp residue is homologous to the hm / pif - pocket site in agc kinases . thus , phosphorylation - dependent intra - and inter - molecular interactions , in their different forms , are physiologically relevant in diverse protein kinases and may be widely present in nature in other proteins . our success in the generation of small molecules that can activate pdk1 by mimicking the phosphorylation - dependent docking of substrates suggests that it may be possible to modulate phosphorylation - dependent conformational changes with small compounds in other systems . the structure of the catalytic domain in active protein kinases is extremely conserved . in contrast , the inactive structures appear to be diverse . thus , in the crystal structures of inactive pkb and msk , the alpha - c helix is disturbed and the dfg motif is distinctly positioned as in the active structures ( smith et al ., 2004 ; yang et al ., 2002 ). thus , activation of pkb and msk is thought to involve a large conformational transition . on the other hand , the crystal structure of the inactive pdk1 protein mutated in the activation loop phosphorylation site ( ser241ala ) has the αc - helix and the dfg motif in a similar position as in the active form ( komander et al ., 2005 ). the authors concluded that the structure of pdk1 ser241ala represents the inactive structure of pdk1 and therefore the inactive - active transition may not involve similar conformational changes as thought for pkb or msk . since a strong electron density was observed at the position equivalent of the phosphor - ser241 in pdk1 [ ser141ala ] crystal , it is also possible that this unidentified high affinity binding ligand stabilized the active conformation of the αc - helix and the dfg motif in those crystals . we have here attempted to probe the phosphorylation - dependent conformational change of pdk1 in solution by using a fluorescent analogue of atp , tnp - atp . in fact , piftide and p - hm - polypeptides prompted a decrease in tnp - atp fluorescence intensity , suggesting a significant conformational change in the atp binding site . we further provide evidence that the conformational change is prompted allosterically by the binding to the hm / pif - pocket , since small compounds that bind to this pocket are able to mimic the same effects on tnp - atp . our results therefore show that the small compounds prompted equivalent conformational changes to piftide or phosphor - peptides . our mutagenesis work further defines , at a molecular level , the regions of pdk1 that are required for the activation . thus , a small molecule occupying a limited space in the hm / pif - pocket defined by ile119 , leu155 , val127 and arg131 , was able to activate pdk1 . mutations in these residues blocked activation by compound 1 . it appears likely that the hydrophobic residues ile119 , leu155 and val127 form part of the hydrophobic pocket required for binding the phenyl groups of compound 1 while the positive charge on arg131 may make specific electrostatic interactions with the carboxylate group from compound 1 . this is in agreement with in silico docking experiments . mutations in ile119 , leu155 and arg131 also inhibited piftide and p - hm - polypeptide binding and activation of pdk1 ( biondi et al ., 2000 ; biondi et al ., 2002 ). by contrast , other residues that were important for binding the hm - polypeptide were found not to be essential for the activation process since they were not required for activation by compound 1 . this was the case for gln150 and lys115 , which play a major role in pdk1 binding to piftide ( biondi et al ., 2000 ; komander et al ., 2005 ). in addition , we here described thr226 as an unexpected determinant in the allosteric effects induced by hm - polypeptides . the equivalent residue in other agc kinases is phe , leu or met , while it is trp in aurora protein kinase , which is most closely related to agc kinases and may share an analogous mode of regulation by interaction with tpx2 ( bayliss et al ., 2003 ). therefore , we predicted that the mutation of thr226 to trp may not have major detrimental effects on protein folding and stability . in agreement with this , pdk1 [ thr226trp ] had only marginally lower basal activity . nevertheless , in spite of binding piftide with high affinity , pdk1 [ thr226trp ] was not activated by piftide or compound 1 . thr226 is located in the sequence dfg t , just next to the dfg motif . we can speculate that the molecular impediments in the activation process of pdk1 [ thr226trp ] are related to the contiguous dfg motif . such model would be in agreement with the important role ascribed to this motif in the activation process of pkb ( yang et al ., 2002 ). komander et al . had characterized the requirement of the activation loop for pdk1 activation ( komander et al ., 2005 ). taken together , our present model suggests that the molecular mechanism of activation involves the docking of a ligand to the hm / pif - pocket , as defined for compound 1 , activation loop phosphorylation , and , finally , it also requires the integrity of the region surrounding the dfg motif in pdk1 which is disrupted by thr226trp mutation ( fig7 ). although the small compounds were able to mimic the conformational changes induced by phosphorylation of the hm from substrates , the small compounds were not able to mimic all the effects that the hm polypeptides exert on pdk1 . thus , while pdk1 stability to temperature is increased by 10 ° c . in the presence of piftide ( biondi et al ., 2000 ), compound 1 did not stabilize pdk1 to thermal denaturation ( data not shown ), suggesting that the larger set of interactions by piftide may be required for this increased stability . importantly , we here demonstrate that all additional specific interactions set by physiological docking polypeptides outside the hm / pif - pocket are not required for the activation of pdk1 . we predict that the hm / pif - pocket regulatory site in other agc kinases may also be targeted by small compounds which could stabilize the inactive structures and inhibit the intrinsic activity of the enzymes . interestingly , compound 1 and compound 3 ( table ii ), which stimulated pdk1 intrinsic activity , inhibited pkcζ in our panel . in contrast , compounds 4 and 5 , which possess single differences in the identity of substituents in r1 and r3 , did not inhibit pkcζ in a comparable manner . it is thus possible that compounds 1 and 3 are allosteric inhibitors of pkcζ which target the hm / pif - pocket site . further object of the invention is therefore a method of inhibiting pkcζ by small molecules . finally , compound 1 proved to be reasonably specific for pdk1 and did not affect significantly the activity of other agc kinases . we here identified that mutation in two non conserved residues , ile119 and val127 , abolished activation by compound 1 . in other agc kinases , the equivalent residue to val127 is thr , ile , leu or ala and the equivalent to ile119 is val , leu , asn or his . thus , our initial characterization of the compound 1 binding site suggests that the pocket may be amenable to the development of specific compounds directed to other agc kinases . in conclusion , the rational development of compound 1 proves that small molecule compounds can provide all the necessary requirements to induce the conformational changes required for activation of agc protein kinases , by interacting with the regulatory hm / pif - pocket . the activation induced by the small molecular weight compounds described here is physiologically achieved in agc kinases by hm phosphorylation . the general mechanism by which the phosphorylation transduces into a conformational change in agc kinases is a phosphorylation - dependent docking interaction of a regulatory sequence to the catalytic domain . a similar mechanism operates in other well characterized examples of protein regulation by phosphorylation . therefore , our work provides the first evidence that , through understanding the molecular mechanism by which a protein is regulated via phosphorylation , it is possible to rationally design small molecular weight drugs to mimic the conformational states physiologically achieved by phosphorylation . such compounds could have future applications in the treatment of disease by specifically modulating the phosphorylation - dependent conformation of a target protein . general materials and methods , the expression and purification of protein kinases , the protein kinase activity tests , in silico screening and the synthesis and characterization of compounds is described in the supplementary information section . polypeptides t308tide : ktfcgtpeylapevrr ; crosstide : grprtssfaeg ; kemptide : lrraslg ; hm - piftide : gfrdfdy and piftide : reprilseeeqemfrdfdyiadwc , were synthesised by us and the purity verified by hplc . where required , the polypeptides were hplc purified . polypeptides used were at least 75 % pure ; the identity of polypeptides was confirmed by n - terminal sequencing and mass spectrometry . p - hm - pkb : kgaggggfpqfs ( p ) ysa , hm - pkb : kgaggggfpqfsysa , p - hm - rsk : kgaggggfrgfs ( p ) fva and hm - rsk : kgaggggfrgfsfva , were obtained from thermohybaid , and identity verified by mass spectrometry . biotinylation of piftide was performed by amine - coupling using biotin - n - hydroxysuccinimide ( perbio ) following the instructions provided by the manufacturer . modified peptides were re - purified to over 90 % purity on a jupiter c5 hplc column ( phenomenex ) applying a linear gradient from 17 % acetonitrile / 0 . 1 % trifluoroacetic acid / 83 % water to 70 % acetonitrile / 0 . 1 % trifluoroacetic acid / 30 % water , lyophilised and kept at − 20 ° c . until use . biotin - p - hm - s6k ( biotin - kqtpvds ( p ) pddstlsesanqvflgft ( p ) yvapsv was a gift from morten frodin ( copenhagen , denmark ). interaction of pdk1 with piftide and the displacement by small compounds . binding of pdk1 to piftide was analysed by surface plasmon resonance on a biacore 3000 system using a streptavidin - coated sensor chip ( sa ) and biotin - piftide , as previously described ( biondi et al ., 2001 ). biotin - piftide was bound to the chip to a level of 15 to 25 response units in different experiments . gst - pdk1 bound to biotin - piftide with an affinity of 90 nm , in good agreement with previous data obtained using the biacore system . for interaction - displacement assays , gst - pdk1 ( 60 nm ) was injected ( 30 μl / min ) in a buffer containing 10 mm hepes ph 7 . 5 , 150 mm nacl , 0 . 005 % tween20 , 1 mm dtt and 1 % dmso , in the presence or absence of compounds . gst - pdk1 was pre - incubated with compounds for 1 to 10 minutes before injection into the system , with similar results . experiments were performed at least twice using different biotin - piftide coated chips , with similar results obtained on each occasion . the activation of pdk1 by p - hm - polypeptides and small compounds is due to a change in the conformation of the enzyme . we probed the conformation of the atp binding site in pdk1 by scanning the steady - state fluorescence of tnp - atp / pdk1 , in the presence or absence of p - hm - polypeptides , piftide , or small molecular weight compounds . data were obtained in a varian cary eclipse spectrofluorometer ( excitation γ = 479 nm ; emission scanning , γ = 500 - 600 nm ; excitation slit = 10 nm ; emission slit = 10 nm ) at a rate of 200 nm / min , with 150 datapoints / 100 nm scanning and 0 . 3 s averaging time . the incubation was performed at 20 ° c . in a buffer containing 50 mm tris - hcl ph 7 . 5 , 0 . 1 mm edta , 187 mm nacl , 40 μm tnp - atp , 15 μm pdk1 catalytic domain ( 50 - 360 ), 1 mm dtt and 1 % dmso . non - phosphorylated hm - polypeptides increased the fluorescence intensity of tnp - atp in the absence of pdk1 and were not used in the study . in preliminary tests , inclusion of 2 . 5 mm mgcl 2 in the assay mix produced similar results . data for each condition are the average of 3 scans . complete protease inhibitor cocktail tablets were from roche . protein concentration was estimated using a coomassie reagent from perbio . protein was concentrated using vivaspin concentrators ( vivascience ). glutathione sepharose , ni - nta sepharose and chromatography columns were from amersham pharmacia biotech . a phosphor - specific antibody which recognizes the phosphorylated activation loop of several agc kinases was from upstate biotechnology . anti - gst ( b - 14 ) was from santa cruz biotechnology . chemiluminescent substrate used in western - blot ( roti - lumin ) was from roth . western - blot stripping buffer ( restore ) was from pierce . human embryonic kidney ( hek ) 293 cells ( atcc collection ) were cultured on 10 cm dishes in dulbecco &# 39 ; s modified eagle &# 39 ; s medium containing 10 % fetal bovine serum ( gibco ). transient transfection of hek 293 cells was performed using a calcium chloride protocol . materials for mammalian tissue culture were from greiner . insect cell expression system and related material were from invitrogen and were used as recommended by the manufacturer . molecular biology techniques were performed using standard protocols . site - directed mutagenesis was performed using a quikchange kit ( stratagene ) following the instructions provided by the manufacturer . dna constructs used for transient transfection were purified from bacteria using a qiagen plasmid mega kit according to the manufacturer &# 39 ; s protocol . dna sequences were verified by automatic dna sequencing ( applied biosystems 3100 genetic analyzer ). commercial small molecular weight compounds used in preliminary screenings were obtained from chembridge ( san diego , usa ), maybridge ( tintagel , uk ) or specs ( rijswijk , netherlands ). for the expression and purification of protein kinases fused to gst , pebg2t derived plasmids were transfected by a modified calcium phosphate method ( 10 μg plasmid / 10 cm dish ) into hek293 cells , the cell media exchanged after 20 h and the cells lysed after 20 h in a buffer containing 50 mm tris - hcl ph 7 . 5 , 1 mm egta , 1 mm edta , 1 % ( w / v ) triton x - 100 , 1 mm sodium orthovanadate , 50 μm sodium fluoride , 5 mm sodium pyrophosphate , 0 . 27 m sucrose , 0 . 1 % β - mercaptoethanol , and 1 tablet of protease inhibitor cocktail per 50 ml of buffer . lysates were frozen in liquid nitrogen and kept at − 80 ° c . until required . purification involved incubation of the cleared lysate with glutathione sepharose , 4 washes with 0 . 5 m nacl in lysis buffer , followed by 10 washes with a buffer containing 50 mm tris - hcl , 0 . 5 mm egta and 0 . 1 % β - mercaptoethanol , and elution with the same buffer containing 20 mm glutathione . gst fusion proteins were aliquoted , snap frozen in liquid nitrogen and kept at − 80 ° c . until use . purity at this stage was above 85 % as estimated by sds - page and staining with coomassie brillant blue r250 . pdk1 was expressed from pebg - 2t - pdk1 , s6k1 from pebg - 2t - s6k1 - t2 [ thr412glu ] and pebg - 2t - s6k1 - t2 [ thr412ala ], sgk1 from pebg - 2t - sgk1 - δn [ ser422asp ], pkbα from pebg - 2t - pkbα [ ser473asp ] ( biondi et al ., 2001 ), pkcζ from pebg - 2t - pkcζ , prk2 from pebg - 2t - prk2 - δn ( balendran et al ., 2000 ). for the spectrofluorometer assay , the pdk1 protein used was the catalytic domain of pdk1 ( 50 - 359 ) produced in sf9 insect cells using baculovirus expression technology ( invitrogen ). pdk1 was cloned in pfastbac - ht plasmid ( ncoi - kpni sites ) taking advantage of an endogenous ncoi site in the pdk1 dna sequence . the codon corresponding to aminoacid 360 was replaced by a stop codon . the protein was produced and purified essentially as described previously ( biondi et al ., 2002 ) with differences due to the use of tev protease to cleave the his - tag . tev protease ( ser205val ) was expressed from pet19b plasmid kindly supplied by a . scheidig ( university of saarland ). after cleavage , the purified pdk1 protein contained an extra gly residue preceding residue 50 of pdk1 and was homogeneous as verified by sds - page , ief and the ability to form crystal needles . pdk1 [ phe224trp ] and pdk1 [ thr226trp ] were produced in the same pfastbac - ht pdk1 50 - 360 vector , expressed and purified as described for the catalytic domain of pdk1 . the pdk1 - pif chimera was also produced in the pfastbac - ht 50 - 360 fused in frame to the last 48 aminoacids from prk2 . protein kinase activity tests were performed essentially as previously described ( balendran et al ., 2000 ; biondi et al ., 2000 ; biondi et al ., 2001 ). substrates used were either mbp ( for pkcζ or polypeptides ( crosstide for pkb , s6k , sgk and prk2 ; t308tide for pdk1 , and kemptide for pka ). pka ( sigma ) was measured in the presence of 100 μm camp . alternatively , assays were performed in a 96 well format , aliquots spotted on p81 phosphocellulose papers ( whatmann ), washed in 0 . 01 % phosphoric acid , dried , and then exposed and analysed using phospholmager technology ( storm , molecular dynamics ). activity measurements were performed in duplicates with less than 10 % difference between duplicate pairs . experiments were repeated at least twice , although most of the experiments were repeated multiple times , with similar results . pdk1 activity assay was performed in a 20 μl mix containing 50 mm tris - hcl ph 7 . 5 , 0 . 05 mg / ml bsa , 0 . 1 % β - mercaptoethanol , 10 mm mgcl 2 , 100 μm [ γ 32 p ] atp ( 5 - 50 cpm / pmol ), 0 . 003 % brij , 150 ng pdk1 , and t308tide ( from 0 . 05 to 1 mm ). pdk1 specific activity was approximately 5 u / mg ( when measured at 1 mm t308tide ). the effect of small compounds on pdk1 was repeated with proteins from different purification batches and with different protein constructs , comprising the full length protein or the catalytic domain alone , with similar results . nevertheless , some differences were observed in the maximal activation of pdk1 between different batches of the same pdk1 construct ( 4 × to 7 × maximal activation ). this variability may be due to the piftide / compound - stimulated autophosphorylation of the activation loop in certain preparations having less than a 1 : 1 molar phosphorylation stoichiometry at this site . phosphorylation of 56k1 - t2 [ t412e ] and sgk1 - δn [ s422d ] by pdk1 in vitro was performed as previously described ( biondi et al ., 2001 ), with the sole difference that the reaction mix included 1 % dmso , and , where indicated , compound 1 . in order to measure the effect of compound 1 on the activity and the level of activation loop phosphorylation of s6k1 in cells , pebg2t vectors coding for gst - s6k1 - t2 [ thr412glu ] and gst - s6k1 - t2 [ thr412ala ] were transfected into hek 293 cells ( 3 . 5 cm dishes ), and the cells serum starved during 16 h previous to treatment with compound 1 ( 200 μm ). cells were lysed 36 h after transfection , cleared by centrifugation and incubated with glutathione sepharose . the resin was washed two times with lysis buffer supplemented with 0 . 250 m nacl , followed by 2 washes with a buffer containing 50 mm tris - hcl , 0 . 1 mm egta and 0 . 1 % β - mercaptoethanol . the gst - fusion proteins were eluted by the addition of glutathione 20 mm and the mix was cleared from resin by filtration through spin - x tubes . the resulting proteins were used both for western - blotting and for activity measurements . similar decrease in s6k activity was observed when the cells were treated with igf1 for 20 min prior to cell lysis . activity assays of the immunoprecipitated s6k , in the presence of resin , were done under agitation . searches of the maybridge database of small compounds were performed using the flexible search routine of unity 4 . 3 ( tripos ), which adjusts the conformations in the course of the search and treat , to some extent , compound flexibility . the structural base for the conducted searches was the pka structure with the two interacting partners being the hydrophobic hm / pif - pocket and its natural c - terminal ligand ( cys343 to phe 350 ). the aminoacids gln35 , leu74 , lys76 , val79 , val80 , ile85 , glu86 , leu89 , leu92 , arg93 , lys111 , leu116 were considered to be relevant for limiting the two hydrophobic regions in the pif - pocket . different ligand searches were performed , which included phe347 and phe350 , and possible hydrogen bond donor oxygens . restrictions were applied with either an exclusion volume related to leu116 or to distance constrains between the benzene rings . depending on the restrictions applied , a few hundred to several thousands compounds were retrieved from each search , without a scoring system . a diverse set of compounds were then tested in vitro and the results used for further selection of compounds in an iterative manner . compound 1 ( 3 -( p - chlorophenyl )- 3 - oxo - 1 - phenyl )- propyl sulfanyl acetic acid ): freshly distilled benzaldehyde was dissolved in 95 % ethanol and sodium hydroxide was added . 4 ′- chlorophenacetone was added and the mixture stirred for 1 . 5 h at 22 ° c . the solid chalcone product was then filtered and washed with 70 % ice - cold ethanol in water followed by water . the product was dissolved in 3 ml acetonitrile and 1 . 4 mmol of triethylamine and 1 . 2 mmol of fresh thioglycolic acid were added to the mixture at rt . after stirring at rt for 2 h , the solvent was removed by rotary evaporation and the crude product re - dissolved in ethylacetate . the organic layer was washed three times with 1 n hcl , dried over mgso 4 and the ethylacetate removed by rotary evaporation . the crude product , appearing as a slightly yellow oil was purified over a silica gel flash column using n - hexane / ethylacetate / formic acid ( 73 : 24 : 3 v / v / v ) as a mobile phase . fractions containing the desired compound were pooled and the mobile phase removed by rotary evaporation , after which compound 1 was obtained as a white solid ( yield : 70 %): mp : 123 - 124 ° c . ; tlc ( n - hexane : ethylacetate : formic acid , 73 : 24 : 3 v / v / v ): r f = 0 . 32 ; for compound 2 ( 3 -( p - chlorophenyl )- 3 - oxo - 1 - phenyl )- propyl sulfanyl acetic acid methyl ester ), the same chalcone precursor as for compound 1 was reacted in the following way : 1 mmol of the chalcone was dissolved in 3 ml methanol and thioglycolic acid ( 1 . 5 mmol ) was added . the mixture was stirred under reflux for 24 h , then a few drops of acetic acid were added , and stirring under reflux was continued for another 16 h . the methanol was removed by rotary evaporation and the crude product purified by flash chromatography using a mobile phase of n - hexane / ethylacetate ( 3 : 1 v / v ). compound 2 was obtained as a yellow oil ( yield : 64 %): tlc ( n - hexane : ethylacetate : formic acid , 73 : 24 : 3 v / v / v ): r f = 0 . 48 . the identity of the products were confirmed by 1 h - nmr , ir analysis and mass spectrometry . compounds according to general formula i are achievable by the above described methods starting from the educts with desired substitution pattern or by the application of other methods described known to the expert skilled in the art . bayliss , r ., sardon , t ., vernos , i . and conti , e . 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( 2002 ) molecular mechanism for the regulation of protein kinase b / akt by hydrophobic motif phosphorylation . mol cell , 9 , 1227 - 1240 . a method of activation of agc kinases by linker and hydrophobic motif phosphorylation sites a significant portion of growth factor / insulin signalling is mediated by a functionally diverse , but structurally related group of protein kinases that belong to the agc kinase family . the group , here called the growth factor - activated agc kinases , includes protein kinase b ( pkbα - γ or akt1 - 3 ), p70 ribosomal s6 kinase ( s6k1 , 2 ), p90 ribosomal s6 kinase ( rsk1 - 4 ), mitogen - and stress - activated protein kinase ( msk1 , 2 ) and several members of the protein kinase c ( pkc ) family . these kinases regulate cellular division , growth , survival , metabolism , motility and differentiation and several are implicated in human disease . the kinases function in partly distinct signalling pathways , such as the phosphoinositide 3 - kinase ( pi3 - k ) pathway ( pkb and s6k ) ( kozma and thomas , 2002 ), map kinase pathways ( rsk and msk ) ( hauge and frodin , 2006 ), in calcium / lipid signalling ( pkc ) ( parekh et al ., 2000 ; newton , 2003 ), or in rho gtpase signalling ( prk2 ) ( parekh et al ., 2000 ). the responsiveness to distinct upstream pathways is partly due to distinct signalling modules flanking the kinase domain in the various kinases ( fig1 ). in addition to the divergent regulation , the growth factor - activated agc kinases share a common core mechanism of activation , which is based on 3 conserved phosphorylation sites . viewed simplistically , the flanking signalling modules serve to induce proper phosphorylation of these phosphorylation sites . the 3 sites are located in the activation loop in the kinase domain , in the middle of a tail / linker region c - terminally to the kinase domain , and within a hydrophobic motif ( hm ) at the end of the tail region , respectively ( fig9 b and fig1 ). the various kinases thought to target the 3 phosphorylation sites are indicated in fig1 . intense efforts have recently established the mechanism of action of the hm and the activation loop phosphorylation sites ( biondi et al ., 2000 ; frodin et al ., 2002 ; yang et al ., 2002a ; yang et al ., 2002b ; smith et al ., 2004 ). phosphorylation of the hm triggers interaction of the phosphate with a phosphate - binding site in the small lobe of the kinase domain , providing the final binding energy required for the aromatic residues of the hm to interact with and stabilize a nearby hydrophobic pocket , which is disordered in the inactive kinase . stabilization of the so - called αc - helix in this pocket is thought to be of key importance , since this helix contains key residues for regulation of phosphotransferase activity and since it may aid to stabilize the activation loop in an optimal conformation . in rsk and s6k , the phosphorylated hm additionally functions as a phosphorylation - dependent docking site that recruits and activates the activation loop kinase pdk1 ( frodin et al ., 2000 ; biondi et al ., 2001 ). the phosphate in the activation loop stimulates kinase activity by binding to basic residues in loops within the active site , which helps position catalytic residues ( knighton et al ., 1991 ). individual phosphorylation of the hm and the activation loop induces negligible and low level activation , respectively . however , in combination , the two phosphorylation events synergistically stimulate kinase activity ( alessi et al ., 1996 ; frodin et al ., 2002 ; yang et al ., 2002b ). one mechanism for this cooperativity is thought to derive from the ability of both phosphates to promote interaction between the αc - helix and the activation loop , leading to mutual stabilization of these key regulatory structures and promotion of the active , closed conformation of the kinase domain . the phosphorylation site in the middle of the tail is the most poorly characterized of the 3 conserved sites , yet its mutation significantly reduces kinase activity and in some agc kinases also hm phosphorylation ( moser et al ., 1997 ; bellacosa et al ., 1998 ; weng et al ., 1998 ; parekh et al ., 2000 ; newton , 2003 ; matsuzaki et al ., 2004 ; mccoy et al ., 2004 ). in rsk and msk , the site is phosphorylated by erk and p38 or erk , respectively , during activation ( dalby et al ., 1998 ; mccoy et al ., 2004 ). in s6k , the site may be phosphorylated by mtor and displays high basal phosphorylation , which is increased 2 - fold in response to growth factor / insulin ( saitoh et al ., 2002 ). in pkb , the site is constitutively phosphorylated by an unknown kinase ( alessi et al ., 1996 ). in pkcs , the site is thought to be autophosphorylated during maturation to the latent catalytically competent conformation ( parekh et al ., 2000 ; newton , 2003 ). the mechanism of action of the phosphorylation site in the middle of the tail is elusive . the agc protein kinase a ( pka ) also contains a phosphorylation site in the middle of its tail region , known as the “ turn motif ” site , since the phosphate binds nearby residues within the tail and thereby stabilizes a turn in the tail . it has been widely assumed that the tail phosphate in the growth factor - activated agc kinases performs the same function . consequently , the site is also known as the turn motif in these kinases and has been aligned with the turn motif of pka ( yang et al ., 2002b ; see review by newton , 2003 ; or roux and blenis , 2004 ). here , we report the mechanism ( s ) whereby the tail phosphorylation site activates pkbα , s6k1 , rsk2 , msk1 , prk2 and pkcζ , which represent 6 of the 7 families of growth factor - activated agc kinases . we report that this phosphorylation site is not equivalent to the turn motif site of pka , but rather corresponds to glu333 of pka . in the growth factor - activated agc kinases , the tail phosphate binds a phosphoser / thr - binding site in the kinase domain near the hydrophobic pocket , serving to deliver the hm to its binding site in a zipper - like manner . our results suggest that the tail phosphate thereby synergistically enhances kinase activation via hm - mediated stabilization of the αc - helix and , in a subset of the kinases , also controls the phosphorylation state of the hm . based on these findings , it could be considered referring to the tail site in growth factor - activated agc kinases as the z ( zipper ) site instead of the turn motif site . our results suggest that the overall mechanism described is a key feature in activation of up to 26 human agc kinases that has been widely conserved during evolution . a potential binding site for the tail phosphoser / thr is widely conserved in the catalytic domain of agc kinases pkbβ has been crystallized in an active conformation showing the hm bound to the hydrophobic pocket ( yang et al ., 2002a ). however a large portion of the tail region , including the tail phosphorylation site ( t451 ), was not visible in the structure . the visible tail region ends with a short helix near the small lobe of the kinase domain . our initial modelling analysis did not support the possibility of a binding site for phosphot451 within the tail region . we therefore analysed the small lobe of pkb for binding sites for phosphot451 using the programs grasp and grid . among various potential sites , we focused on the most interesting site , located above the atp - binding , glycine - rich loop and formed by 4 basic residues , k160 , k165 , r184 and r224 ( hereafter referred to as basic residues 1 to 4 ) of which the first two are part of the glycine - rich loop . ab initio modelling of the non - crystallized region of the tail suggested that the phosphate of t451 might be located in the middle of this basic cluster . the location appeared energetically favourable , since the phosphate remained in the site during dynamics simulations on the model , constantly interacting with 2 or 3 of the basic residues which differed over time ( fig9 a ). the 4 basic residues are conserved in all 23 members of the pkb , s6k , rsk , msk , prk and pkc families ( fig9 c and fig1 ). they are also conserved in the 3 members of the sgk family of growth factor - activated agc kinases , which have a tail phosphorylation site ( kobayashi et al ., 1999 ), required for full kinase activity ( c . j . jensen and m . frodin , unpublished observation ). finally , the tail site and the basic residues are co - conserved during evolution as illustrated by s6k orthologues from d . melanogaster , c . elegans , a . thaliana , and s . pombe ( fig1 ). modelling of s6k1 and rsk2 supported the existence of a phosphate - binding site homologous to that of pkbβ ( fig1 ). the basic residues are poorly conserved in agc kinases not thought to contain a tail phosphorylation site ( pdk1 , rock , mrck , lats and dmpk , fig9 c ). thus , modelling and sequence conservation suggested that in the growth factor - activated agc kinases , the tail phosphoser / thr interacts with a phosphate - binding site within the kinase domain , implying a different role of this phosphorylation site from that of the turn motif site in pka . the functional characterization presented below suggests that the tail phosphate promotes zipper - like binding of the tail and hm to the kinase domain , aimed at controlling activation of the kinases by the hm . role of the tail site in phosphorylation and activation of agc kinases in vivo we first characterized further the importance of the tail site in the growth factor - activated agc kinases . pkbα , s6k1 , rsk2 and msk1 were purified from transiently transfected cos7 cells exposed to an appropriate stimulus . prk2 , including the truncated mutant used here , prk2 δ1 - 500 , was active in non - stimulated cos7 cells and was therefore purified from non - treated cells . immunoblotting with phosphospecific antibodies showed that the tail site was constitutively phosphorylated in pkbα , prk2 and s6k1 ( sometimes a 2 - fold induction was observed in s6k1 , fig2 a ) and strongly induced in rsk2 and msk1 following stimulation ( fig1 ). mutation of the tail site to ala reduced activation from ≈ 60 % in pkbα to ≈ 98 % in s6k1 ( fig1 ). furthermore , in s6k1 , msk1 and rsk2 , mutation of the tail site reduced phosphorylation of the hm with moderate to profound effects . in pkbα , mutation of the tail site modestly enhanced phosphorylation of the hm and the activation loop . mutation of the tail site to phosphate - mimicking glu could substitute for phosphorylation in pkbα and rsk2 , partially in msk1 , but not in prk2 ( fig1 ), similar to findings with s6k1 ( moser et al ., 1997 ). these results further establish the importance of the tail site in pkb , s6k , rsk and msk and report its role in the prk family ( and in pkcζ , fig1 ) for the first time . the predicted binding site for the tail phosphate is essential for normal activation and phosphorylation of agc kinases in vivo we next mutated the predicted binding site for the tail phosphate by introducing amino acids that are present at the corresponding positions in agc kinases without a tail site , assuming that such mutations would not compromise tertiary structure . the assumption was supported by normal expression of nearly all mutants . analysis of 76 point - mutants suggested that the predicted binding site is functional in all growth factor - activated agc kinases and identified the most important individual or combinations of basic residues in the various agc kinase subfamilies . in pkbα , quadruple mutation of the four basic residues ( as in pkbα - k158t / k163s / k182s / r222n ), reduced kinase activity by ≈ 40 % ( fig3 a ), comparable to the ≈ 60 % reduction resulting from mutation of the tail site t450 ( fig1 ). moreover , phosphorylation of t450 was considerably reduced in pkbα - k158t / k163s / k182s / r222n , suggesting that the binding of phosphot450 to the basic residues protects it from dephosphorylation . the finding that pkbα - k158t / k163s / k182s / r222n had somewhat higher activity than pkbα - t450a likely results from residual phosphorylation at t450 in the former mutant . the residual phosphate may interact with the introduced thr , ser and asn residues and induce a small degree of activation , as these amino acids can bind phosphoser / thr , although with lower affinity than lys and arg . surprisingly , single to triple mutation of the basic residues in pkbα resulted in significantly increased basal and insulin - stimulated kinase activity , which apparently resulted from increased phosphorylation of the hm and the activation loop ( fig1 a ). these mutations also increased the biological activity of pkb , since nih 3t3 cells virally transduced with pkbα - k163s or pkbα - k182s showed a small , but significant increase in colony formation in sparsely seeded cultures , as compared to cells transduced with wt pkbα ( c . hauge and m . frodin , unpublished observation ). in s6k1 , mutation of basic residue 4 reduced kinase activity by ≈ 85 % ( fig1 a ), comparable to the ≈ 98 % reduction caused by mutation of the tail site s371 ( fig1 ). furthermore , mutation of basic residue 4 profoundly reduced phosphorylation in the hm and moderately in the activation loop , similar to the effects obtained by mutation of the tail site . mutation of basic residue 1 reduced kinase activity and hm phosphorylation by ≈ 60 % ( fig2 a ). in rsk2 , individual mutation of basic residue 1 to 4 had negligible effect , but mutation of all four residues reduced kinase activity by ≈ 40 %, comparable to the ≈ 60 % reduction caused by mutation of the tail site s369 , and slightly reduced hm phosphorylation . in msk1 , double mutation of basic residues 2 and 4 reduced kinase activity to almost the same low level as that obtained after mutation of the tail site s360 . the double mutation also significantly reduced phosphorylation of the hm , as did mutation of the tail site . in prk2 , individual mutation of basic residue 2 ( or 1 or 3 , fig2 c ), reduced kinase activity to similarly low levels as that obtained by mutation of the tail site t958 . mutation of the basic residues caused a profound reduction in phosphorylation of t958 , suggesting that the binding of phosphot958 to these residues protects it from dephosphorylation . in the various kinases , the effects of mutating the tail site and the critical basic residues were not additive ( fig2 b and data not shown ), indicating that the tail phosphate and its predicted binding site regulate kinase activity by the same mechanism . the role of the tail phosphate appears highly conserved during evolution , since mutation of the tail site s380 and basic residue 4 ( k153 ) abolished kinase activity and hm phosphorylation of drosophila s6k expressed in drosophila s2 cells ( fig1 b ). since mutation of the tail phosphate - binding site decreased the phosphorylation of hm in s6k1 and msk1 , it could not be determined whether the site affected kinase activity by a mechanism other than regulation of hm dephosphorylation . to render the hm insensitive to phosphatases , we generated mutants with glu in the hm phosphorylation site ( s6k1 - t389e , msk1 - s376e ). s6k1 - t389e possessed higher activity than wt s6k1 ( fig1 c ), in accordance with previous findings ( weng et al ., 1998 ). more importantly , mutation of basic residue 1 or 4 in s6k1 - t389e reduced kinase activity to the same extent as did these mutations in wt s6k1 without affecting the phosphorylation state ( fig1 c and data not shown ). similar results were obtained with msk1 - s376e ( data not shown ). thus , the tail phosphate - binding site can activate s6k1 and msk1 by a mechanism distinct from the one protecting the hm from dephosphorylation . in pkbα with glu at the hm phosphorylation site ( pkbα - s473e ), the quadruple mutation ( k158t / k163s / k182s / r222n ) and the k163s mutation of the tail phosphate - binding site had the same effects as in wt pkbα ( fig1 c ). this agrees with the results obtained with wt pkbα that severe disruption of the interaction between the tail phosphate and its binding site precludes full kinase activity and that high levels of phosphorylation in the activation loop and glu in the hm cannot compensate for the disrupted interaction . in pkbα - s473e with deletion of the ph domain ( δph - pkbα - s473e ), the k163s mutation did not increase phosphorylation or kinase activity of pkbα ( fig2 d ), further suggesting that this mutation stimulates pkbα activity by inducing hyperphosphorylation , which may occur at the plasma membrane . in δph - pkbα - s473e , mutation of the tail site had less effect on kinase activity compared to full length pkbα ( fig2 d ), possibly because δph - pkbα - s473e was less phosphorylated at the tail site ( fig2 e ), which suggests that membrane localization of pkbα promotes phosphorylation of the tail site . however , these experiments should be interpreted with caution , since deletion of the ph domain likely alters the conformation of pkb . we conclude that the tail phosphate interacts with a binding site widely conserved among growth factor - activated agc kinases . we propose that the tail phosphate thereby functions as a molecular zipper that helps deliver the hm to its binding site and stabilize it there , which has two consequences . firstly , in all of the kinases this directly stimulates kinase activity , presumably by stabilization of the active kinase conformation . secondly , in a subset of the kinases this controls the phosphorylation state of the hm , presumably by restricting its exposure to phosphatases and kinases . while a functional tail phosphate - binding site is conserved in all of the kinases studied , the key basic residues involved in forming the site varies somewhat among the different agc kinase families . if the tail phosphate and the basic residues are indeed within interaction distance , it might be possible to engineer a zn 2 + - binding site by replacing the tail site ser / thr and the basic residues with histidines . a zn 2 + - binding site may be detected by zn 2 + - dependent modulation of enzymatic function , most often inhibition due to distortion of protein structure . zn 2 + up to 3 . 3 μm had no effect on the activity of wt prk2 or prk2 with his in the tail site ( prk2 - t958h ) ( fig1 a ). by contrast , prk2 with his in place of basic residues 2 and 3 ( prk2 - k670h / k689h ) was inhibited by zn 2 + at 3 . 3 μm , but not at lower concentrations . thus , the close proximity of basic residues 2 to 4 ( wt prk2 has his at the position of basic residue 4 ) allowed engineering of a zn 2 + - binding site , which caused zn 2 + - dependent inhibition of kinase activity , possibly due to distortion of the glycine - rich loop . more importantly , introduction of his in the tail site ( t958h ) of prk2 - k670h / k689h , generated a zn 2 + - binding site with increased affinity , as evidenced by more profound inhibition at 3 . 3 μm and detectable inhibition already at 0 . 5 μm zn 2 + . similar results were obtained after zn 2 + site engineering in pkbα ( data not shown ). furthermore , if the tail site ser / thr and the basic residues are within interaction distance , mutation of the tail site ser / thr to arg might inhibit kinase activity to a higher extent than an ala mutation due to electrostatic repulsion of the tail . in msk1 , an s360r mutation indeed inhibited kinase activity to a higher extent (≈ 90 %, fig1 b ) than an s360a mutation (≈ 80 %, fig1 ). msk1 - k62e / k84s / k126n , which has an acidic residue in place of basic residue 2 and neutral charge in place of basic residues 3 and 4 had ≈ 15 % activity compared to wt msk1 . strikingly , in this mutant , introduction of the s360r mutation was not inhibitory , but rather increased kinase activity to ≈ 40 % of that of wt msk1 . in this charge - reversal mutant , r360 presumably binds e62 introduced in place of basic residue 2 and thereby partially rescues kinase activity . in conclusion , these experiments provide evidence that the tail phosphate and the basic cluster are within interaction distance in the active agc kinase conformation . the tail phosphate synergistically enhances agc kinase activation by the phosphorylated hm , dependent on the tail phosphate - binding site we established an in vitro reconstitution assay that could test a direct activation of the agc kinase domain by the tail phosphate and characterize its cooperation with the hm and activation loop phosphates . the deletion mutant s6k1 1 - 364 , which contains the kinase domain , but lacks the region of the tail containing the tail site and the hm as well as the c - terminal autoinhibitory domain , was expressed and purified from cos7 cells , either non - phosphorylated or phosphorylated at t221 in the activation loop , achieved by co - expression with pdk1 . purified s6k1 1 - 364 was then incubated with synthetic peptides of the s6k1 tail ( residues 366 - 395 : qtpvds 371 pddstlsesanqvflgft 389 yvapsv ), which were either non - phosphorylated ( s371 / t389 ), phosphorylated at the tail site ( ps371 / t389 ), phosphorylated in the hm ( s371 / pt389 ) or phosphorylated at both sites ( ps371 / pt389 ). subsequently , the kinase activity of s6k1 1 - 364 was determined . s371 / t389 or ps371 / t389 tail peptides did not stimulate the kinase activity of thr221 - phosphorylated s6k1 1 - 364 , whereas s371 / pt389 peptide induced a 5 - to 7 - fold stimulation of kinase activity at 190 μm ( fig1 a ). more importantly , ps371 / pt389 peptide induced a 16 - to 22 - fold stimulation of kinase activity at 190 μm . these experiments revealed that the tail phosphate synergistically enhances s6k1 activation by the hm phosphate , while having no effect on its own . in similar experiments with a truncated pkbβ kinase domain , the tail phosphate also enhanced the ability of the hm to stimulate kinase activity ( fig2 b ). we next investigated the role of the tail phosphate - binding site . the basic residue 4 mutant s6k1 1 - 364 k144n was activated normally by s371 / pt389 peptide ( fig1 b , compare bars 3 and 7 ), but could not be hyperactivated by ps371 / pt389 ( compare bars 4 and 8 ), indicating that the tail phosphate - binding site mediates the kinase - activating effect of the tail phosphate . as a control , s6k1 1 - 364 k144n was phosphorylated and activated normally by pdk1 ( compare bars 2 and 6 in fig5 b , fig2 a ), indicating that the k144n mutation did not compromise the tertiary structure of s6k1 , but selectively disrupted the tail phosphate - binding site . as another control , pdk1 , which lacks a tail phosphate - binding site ( fig9 b ) but contains a phm - binding site ( biondi et al ., 2002 ; frodin et al ., 2002 ), was activated to the same extent by s371 / pt389 and ps371 / pt389 ( fig2 c ). surface plasmon resonance measurements revealed that the k144n mutation decreased the binding of s6k1 1 - 365 to ps371 / pt389 peptide by ≈ 50 % ( fig1 c ). similarly , the k144n mutation decreased the binding of s6k1 1 - 365 to ps371 / t389 peptide by about 40 %, whereas the k144n mutation had no effect on the binding of s6k1 1 - 365 to s371 / pt389 peptide ( data not shown ). no specific binding of s6k1 1 - 365 or s6k1 1 - 365 k144n to s371 / t389 peptide could be detected . binding constants for these interactions could not be determined using the biacore instrument , since the affinities were too low for kinetic analysis , in accordance with the ac 50 value of ≈ 60 μm for ps371 / pt389 towards s6k1 1 - 365 ( fig1 a ). as a control , pdk1 bound equally well to s371 / pt389 and ps371 / pt389 ( fig2 d ). we conclude that the binding contribution of ps371 in these experiments result from interaction with the tail phosphate - binding site . these results support the model that the interaction between the tail phosphate and its binding site promotes the binding of the tail to the kinase domain and thereby the tail phosphate synergistically enhances kinase activation by the phosphorylated hm . the tail phosphate promotes a compact agc kinase conformation and protects the tail phosphate - binding site and αc - helix from solvent exposure as revealed by amide hydrogen ( 1 h / 2 h ) exchange and mass spectrometry ( hxms ) proteins analyzed by hxms are incubated in d 2 o and the mass increase resulting from isotopic exchange of backbone amide protons ( 1 per residue , except for proline ) for solvent deuterons is measured by mass spectrometry . differences in hydrogen exchange rates between protein samples reflect differences in solvent exposure due to conformational change and / or protein - protein interaction . sites of conformational change / interaction are revealed as regions with increased protection in analyses of peptic digests of the labelled proteins ( local hxms ). addition of s371 / pt389 and ps371 / pt389 peptide to s6k1 1 - 365 , resulted in ≈ 10 and ≈ 25 fewer deuterons incorporated , respectively , in s6k1 1 - 365 at early time points of analysis , as compared to no peptide added ( fig1 a ). the non - phosphorylated s371 / t389 peptide had no effect , demonstrating that non - specific peptide binding to s6k1 1 - 365 did not contribute to the surface protection . we next investigated the effect of the tail phosphate on deuteron uptake in a full - length agc kinase . for this analysis we chose pkcζ , since only this kinase , among the ones tested , was found to be stoichiometrically phosphorylated at all the regulatory phosphorylation sites , which is critical for hxms analysis . first , we demonstrated that the tail site t560 is essential for full pkcζ activity and identified basic residues 2 and 4 ( k265 , k284 ) as key residues in the tail phosphate - binding site ( fig1 b ). second , we found that mutation of the tail site and its binding site greatly increased global deuteron uptake by pkcζ and to exactly the same extent ( fig1 c ). at early time points of analysis , the tail phosphate protected ≈ 60 residues . finally , we sought to identify specific regions in pkcζ protected by the tail phosphate by local hxms analysis . strikingly , peptide ( a ), corresponding to the regulatory αc - helix was dramatically protected by the tail phosphate ( fig1 d ). moreover , protection was observed in peptide ( b ), but not in the overlapping peptide ( c ). this means that the 2 - 3 protected residues in peptide ( b ) are to be found in the sequence a k vll , which encompasses a c - terminal residue of the glycine - rich loop and basic residue 2 ( underlined ). protection was also observed in peptide ( d ), encompassing part of the αg - helix , consistent with the finding that this helix is disturbed in pkb structures with a disordered αc - helix . slight protection was observed in peptide ( e ) corresponding to the start of the tail region . no protection was observed in peptide ( f ), located in a region of the large lobe not predicted to be affected by the tail phosphate or in peptide ( g ) located between the tail site and the hm , in agreement with the solvent exposed and flexible nature of this segment , as revealed by its near - complete deuteron uptake in wt pkcζ . for technical reasons , the sequence coverage of pkcζ was not complete and we could therefore not perform a full analysis of the effect of the tail phosphate on local hx . the local hxms analysis provides strong evidence that the tail phosphate interacts with basic residue 2 in the binding site and that it promotes a dramatic stabilization of the regulatory αc - helix of the hydrophobic pocket . moreover , the large extent of protection revealed by global hxms strongly suggests that the tail phosphate promotes a significant allosteric change to a more compact conformation , which most likely corresponds to the closed , active agc kinase conformation . the tail site is not related to the turn motif site in pka we noticed that in active , but not inactive structures of pka ( 1atp / 1ydr / 1fmo / 1l3r and 1ctp / 1cmk , respectively ), r56 , which aligns with basic residue 2 , binds e333 in the pka tail . moreover , e333 holds a similar position as the tail phosphate in our models ( fig1 a ). mutation of r56 or e333 / e334 profoundly reduced autophosphorylation in the activation loop and catalytic activity of pka ( fig1 b ). individual mutation of e333 had little effect , suggesting compensatory action by e332 , which is in close proximity to r56 in active pka structures . similar compensatory action has been reported upon mutation of the tail site in pkcβii ( newton , 2001 ). our results with pka suggest that the e333 / r56 interaction evolved from the tail phosphate / basic residue 1 - 4 interaction or vice versa , implying that the tail site should be aligned with e333 , rather than with the turn motif site ( fig1 d ). in such a revised alignment , the pka turn motif site aligns well with s375 in rsk2 , recently identified as a site of phosphorylation ( ballif et al ., 2005 ). interestingly , mutation of s375 to ala reduced egf - stimulated rsk2 activity by whereas a phosphate - mimicking glu mutation did not ( fig1 c ). the inhibitory effects of the s375a and the tail site s369a mutations were additive , indicating that the two phosphorylation sites stimulate rsk2 activity by distinct mechanisms . in agreement with this conclusion , modelling and dynamics simulations suggested that phosphos375 does not interact with the tail phosphate - binding site but may bind neighbouring polar residues within the tail , thereby resembling the turn motif phosphate in pka ( fig1 a ). we conclude that the tail site and the turn motif site are non - related rather than being the same site which adopts two distinct conformations in growth factor - activated agc kinases and pka , respectively . thus , agc kinases may contain either or both sites , and in pka , the tail site consists of a phosphate - mimicking glu . based on the present findings , we propose to refer to the tail site in growth factor - activated agc kinases as the z ( zipper ) site instead of the turn motif site . the molecular mechanism whereby the tail phosphorylation site stimulates the activity of the growth factor - activated agc kinases has been the last unresolved issue in their common activation mechanism . the data presented here support the following model : the tail phosphate interacts with a phosphate - binding site in the small lobe of the kinase domain , located on top of the atp - binding , glycine - rich loop . the tail phosphate - binding site thereby provides an anchoring point for the tail , which increases the local concentration of the hm in the immediate vicinity of the binding site through which the hm stimulates kinase activity . this increase in local concentration is likely to be important , since the affinity of the phosphorylated hm for its binding site is very low , with estimated k d &# 39 ; s ranging from 30 to 600 μm among various agc kinases ( frodin et al ., 2002 ; yang et al ., 2002b ; this study ). by increasing the local concentration , the tail phosphate - binding site enhances the ability of the phosphorylated hm to interact with the hydrophobic pocket . our model further proposes that the tail phosphate - binding site thereby allosterically affects the αc - helix and protects the hm from dephosphorylation . the tail phosphate - binding site thus promotes kinase activity by at least two mechanisms . in the first mechanism , which likely operates in all of the growth factor - activated agc kinases , the tail phosphate - binding site allosterically supports the re - ordering of the hm - binding pocket , including the αc - helix . stabilization of the αc - helix is thought to be of key importance in activation of agc kinases . in the ordered αc - helix , a conserved glu stabilizes a conserved lys , which positions the α - and β - phosphates of atp , whereas other residues are thought to stabilize the activation loop , which likely constitutes a mechanism for cooperation between the hm and activation loop phosphates in stimulation of kinase activity . it is therefore a highlight of the present study that local hxms analysis showed dramatic stabilization of the αc - helix by the tail phosphate . we estimate that the tail phosphate protects ≈ 50 % of the residues in the αc - helix , providing strong evidence for our model that the tail phosphate functions to aid the hm to bind and re - order the hydrophobic pocket . the results also provide the first in - solution evidence of stabilization of the αc - helix during agc kinase activation . previously , the disorder - to - order transition of the αc - helix was supported mainly by comparison of crystal structures of inactive and active pkb ( yang et al ., 2002a ; yang et al ., 2002b ). global hxms analysis suggested that ≈ 60 residues were protected by the tail phosphate in pkcζ , a number exceeding the residues in the tail phosphate - binding sites and the αc - helix . this suggests that the tail phosphate promotes a significant allosteric change , which we assume corresponds to stabilization also of the αb - helix , another component of the hm - binding pocket and of the activation loop , leading to stabilization of the entire kinase domain in the closed , active conformation . in the second mechanism , the tail phosphate - binding site stimulates kinase activity by increasing the phosphorylation level in the hm . this mechanism operates only in a subset of the agc kinases such as s6k , msk and to a slight extend rsk ( this study ), and likely also in several pkcs , where mutation of the tail site decreases hm phosphorylation ( parekh et al ., 2000 ; newton , 2003 ). the second mechanism is most likely linked to the first mechanism , since interaction of the phosphorylated hm with its binding site presumably renders the phosphate less accessible to phosphatases due to its binding to several charged / polar residues . the reason that the second mechanism may operate only in some agc kinases may partly be due to the possibility that the hm in the various agc kinases is targeted by distinct phosphatases with varying efficiency . basic residues 1 and 2 are located at the base of the glycine - rich loop which positions the γ - phosphate of atp for phosphotransfer . in our hxms analysis , the tail phosphate affected the flexibility of the segment akvll which encompasses part of the glycine - rich loop and basic residue 2 . it would be interesting to investigate whether the tail phosphate may promote kinase activity by modulating the position of the glycine - rich loop via basic residue 2 in addition to the two mechanisms described above . our data suggest that the tail phosphate - binding site is composed of 4 basic residues . the in - dispensability of individual basic residues varied among the kinases . for instance , in s6k1 and prk2 , individual mutation of basic residue 4 and 1 to 3 , respectively , inhibited kinase activity by & gt ; 85 %, whereas in pkbα and rsk2 , all 4 basic residues must be mutated to achieve substantial inhibition . in some kinases we observed that individual mutation of a particular basic residue had negligible effect , but the same mutation enhanced the inhibitory effect of other basic residue mutations ( data not shown ). however , caution needs to be taken regarding conclusions on the exact contribution / importance of specific basic residues , since we introduced semi - conservative substitutions like ser , thr or asn with some phosphate - binding ability . nevertheless , taken together , our results suggest that the tail phosphate may bind several distinct combinations of basic residues , which may change dynamically over time . this possibility is supported by the open appearance of the tail phosphate - binding site in the pkbβ crystal structure and by our molecular dynamics simulations . similar dynamic interaction modes may also exist for the pka turn motif phosphate , perhaps due to the flexible nature of the pka tail region ( johnson et al ., 2001 ). thus , the turn motif phosphate binds r336 , n340 and k342 in the structure 1fmo , n340 and k342 in 1atp , and none of these residues in 1bkk . in the growth factor - activated agc kinases , the 4 basic residues might perform partly distinct roles . for instance , basic residue 1 may function mainly to attract the tail phosphate , followed by docking of the tail phosphate to the more deeply positioned basic residues 2 to 4 . basic residues 3 and 4 are located in the non - flexible β - strands 3 and 5 , respectively . binding to these residues may fix the tail phosphate , allowing it to affect the position of the non - rigid glycine - rich loop via interaction with basic residue 2 . recently , a crystal structure of the pkct kinase domain was reported ( messerschmidt et al ., 2005 ). in this structure , the tail phosphate binds basic residues 3 and 4 , in agreement with our study . unlike our model , the authors speculated that the phosphate may function 1 ) to stabilize the kinase domain , referring to the destabilizing effect of mutation of the turn motif site of pka and the kinase - inactivating effect of mutation of the tail site in pkc , 2 ) to push the tail out of the active site or 3 ) to regulate the interaction of the kinase domain with the flanking signalling modules in pkc . the role of the tail phosphate and its interactions were not investigated . the side chain of the basic residue 2 lys was not visible in the structure , but we noted that its backbone is located immediately beneath the tail phosphate , allowing binding of the side chain to the tail phosphate . we therefore mutated the tail site t555 and the basic residues 2 - 4 and observed a ≈ 25 % reduction of kinase activity ( fig2 ). the mutational analysis thus revealed that the interaction is required for full pkcι activation , but also showed that the tail phosphate is less important for pkcι than for other agc kinases that we have analyzed . the present study provides the first characterization of the cooperation between all 3 conserved phosphates in stimulation of agc kinase activity by using an in vitro reconstitution assay based on long tail peptides . our data showed that the 3 phosphates act in a hierarchal manner : the tail phosphate has no activating effect alone or together with the activation loop phosphate . however , the tail phosphate synergistically enhances the ability of the hm phosphate to stimulate kinase activity in cooperation with the activation loop phosphate . global hxms analysis in this system suggested that the tail phosphate promoted a significant allosteric change , which we assume represents hm - mediated transition to the closed , active agc kinase conformation . our model and data thus implies that the activating conformational change induced by binding of the hm to the hydrophobic pocket is triggered not only by hm phosphorylation , as previously suggested , but is regulated by the dual phosphorylation events in the tail site and the hm , working in a cooperative manner . these results together with previous studies underscore the extensive cooperation of the 3 conserved phosphorylation sites with respect to shifting the equilibrium of the agc kinase catalytic domain from the inactive , open conformation towards the active , closed conformation during stimulus - induced activation . this cooperativity is likely also an important determinant during inactivation . in many of the kinases , the phosphorylation sites are rapidly dephosphorylated upon cessation of the activating stimulus . in this process , dephosphorylation at one site may greatly decrease the ability of the remaining phosphates to support the active , closed and more phosphatase - resistant conformation , resulting in accelerated dephosphorylation of the remaining phosphates and complete inactivation of the kinase . elevated pkb activity is essential for the progression of many human cancers and may result from mutations in e . g . pi3 - k or pten . recently , 2 point mutations in pkb were identified in colorectal cancer ( parsons et al ., 2005 ). the present study reports mutations in the tail phosphate - binding site which yielded a considerable degree of activation and which stimulated cell growth ( c . hauge and m . frodin , unpublished observation ). activation appeared to result from increased phosphorylation in the hm and the activation loop . presumably , the aberrantly exposed hm of pkb in these mutants becomes hyperphosphorylated by the physiological pkb hm kinase or by some other hm kinase . profound hyperphosphorylation of pkb was not observed after severe disruption of zipper function such as in pkbα - t450a . conceivably , if the hm of pkb becomes excessively exposed , phosphatase action counteracts kinase action . the increased activation loop phosphorylation may be a consequence of the increased hm phosphorylation , since the phosphorylated hm is thought to promote the closed , and more phosphatase - resistant conformation of the agc kinase domain . alternatively , the abnormally exposed hm may increase activation loop phosphorylation by recruitment of pdk1 , as hm phosphorylation may enhance phosphorylation of pkb by pdk1 under certain conditions ( scheid et al ., 2002 ). regardless of the mechanism , our results suggest that elevated pkb activity in cancer cells may result from mutations in the tail phosphate - binding site of pkb . our study suggests that the tail site and the turn motif site are two distinct phosphorylation sites that should not be aligned . since it is problematic to use the designation “ turn motif ” for two distinct sites , we propose to refer to the tail site as the z ( zipper ) site , a name which reflects one major function of this phosphorylation site according to the present findings . in conclusion , the present study provides important information on the missing pieces in the core mechanism , whereby 3 conserved phosphorylation sites stabilize the active conformation of up to 26 human agc kinases , which thus represents one of the most general activation mechanisms reported in the human kinome . alessi , d . r ., andjelkovic , m ., caudwell , b ., cron , p ., morrice , n ., cohen , p . and hemmings , b . a . ( 1996 ) mechanism of activation of protein kinase b by insulin and igf - 1 . embo j , 15 , 6541 - 6551 . ballif , b . a ., roux , p . p ., gerber , s . a ., mackeigan , j . p ., blenis , j . and gygi , s . p . ( 2005 ) quantitative phosphorylation profiling of the erk / p90 ribosomal s6 kinase - signaling cassette and its targets , the tuberous sclerosis tumor suppressors . proc natl acad sci usa , 102 , 667 - 672 . bellacosa , a ., chan , t . o ., ahmed , n . n ., datta , k ., malstrom , s ., stokoe , d ., mccormick , f ., feng , j . and tsichlis , p . ( 1998 ) akt activation by growth factors is a multiple - step process : the role of the ph domain . oncogene , 17 , 313 - 325 . biondi , r . m ., cheung , p . c ., casamayor , a ., deak , m ., currie , r . a . and alessi , d . r . ( 2000 ) identification of a pocket in the pdk1 kinase domain that interacts with pif and the c - terminal residues of pka . embo j ., 19 , 979 - 988 . biondi , r . m ., kieloch , a ., currie , r . a ., deak , m . and alessi , d . r . ( 2001 ) the pif - binding pocket in pdk1 is essential for activation of s6k and sgk , but not pkb . embo j ., 20 , 4380 - 4390 . biondi , r . m ., komander , d ., thomas , c . c ., lizcano , j . m ., deak , m ., alessi , d . r . and van aalten , d . m . ( 2002 ) high resolution crystal structure of the human pdk1 catalytic domain defines the regulatory phosphopeptide docking site . embo j , 21 , 4219 - 4228 . dalby , k . n ., morrice , n ., caudwell , f . b ., avruch , j . and cohen , p . ( 1998 ) identification of regulatory phosphorylation sites in mitogen - activated protein kinase ( mapk )- activated protein kinase - 1a / p90rsk that are inducible by mapk . j . biol . chem ., 273 , 1496 - 1505 . frodin , m ., antal , t . l ., dummler , b . a ., jensen , c . j ., deak , m ., gammeltoft , s . and biondi , r . m . ( 2002 ) a phosphoserine / threonine - binding pocket in agc kinases and pdk1 mediates activation by hydrophobic motif phosphorylation . embo j ., 21 , 5396 - 5407 . frodin , m ., jensen , c . j ., merienne , k . and gammeltoft , s . ( 2000 ) a phosphoserine - regulated docking site in the protein kinase rsk2 that recruits and activates pdk1 . embo j ., 19 , 2924 - 2934 . hauge , c . and frodin , m . ( 2006 ) rsk and msk in map kinase signalling . j cell sci , 119 , 3021 - 3023 . johnson , d . a ., akamine , p ., radzio - andzelm , e ., madhusudan , m . and taylor , s . s . ( 2001 ) dynamics of camp - dependent protein kinase . chem rev , 101 , 2243 - 2270 . knighton , d . r ., zheng , j . h ., ten eyck , l . f ., ashford , v . a ., xuong , n . h ., taylor , s . s . and sowadski , j . m . ( 1991 ) crystal structure of the catalytic subunit of cyclic adenosine monophosphate - dependent protein kinase . science , 253 , 407 - 414 . kobayashi , t ., deak , m ., morrice , n . and cohen , p . ( 1999 ) characterization of the structure and regulation of two novel isoforms of serum - and glucocorticoid - induced protein kinase . biochem j , 344 pt 1 , 189 - 197 . kozma , s . c . and thomas , g . ( 2002 ) regulation of cell size in growth , development and human disease : pi3k , pkb and s6k . bioessays , 24 , 65 - 71 . matsuzaki , h ., yamamoto , t . and kikkawa , u . ( 2004 ) distinct activation mechanisms of protein kinase b by growth - factor stimulation and heat - shock treatment . biochemistry , 43 , 4284 - 4293 . mccoy , c . e ., campbell , d . g ., deak , m ., bloomberg , g . b . and arthur , j . s . ( 2004 ) msk1 activity is controlled by multiple phosphorylation sites . biochem j . messerschmidt , a ., macieira , s ., velarde , m ., badeker , m ., benda , c ., jestel , a ., brandstetter , h ., neuefeind , t . and blaesse , m . ( 2005 ) crystal structure of the catalytic domain of human atypical protein kinase c - iota reveals interaction mode of phosphorylation site in turn motif . j mol biol , 352 , 918 - 931 . moser , b ., dennis , p ., pullen , n ., pearson , r ., williamson , n ., wettenhall , r ., kozma , s , and thomas , g . ( 1997 ) dual requirement for a newly identified phosphorylation site in p70s6k . mol . cell . biol ., 17 , 5648 - 5655 . newton , a . c . ( 2001 ) protein kinase c : structural and spatial regulation by phosphorylation , cofactors , and macromolecular interactions . chem rev , 101 , 2353 - 2364 . newton , a . c . ( 2003 ) regulation of the abc kinases by phosphorylation : protein kinase c as a paradigm . biochem j , 370 , 361 - 371 . parekh , d . b ., ziegler , w . and parker , p . j . ( 2000 ) multiple pathways control protein kinase c phosphorylation . embo j , 19 , 496 - 503 . parsons , d . w ., wang , t . l ., samuels , y ., bardelli , a ., cummins , j . m ., delong , l ., silliman , n ., ptak , j ., szabo , s ., willson , j . k ., markowitz , s ., kinzler , k . w ., vogelstein , b ., lengauer , c . and velculescu , v . e . ( 2005 ) colorectal cancer : mutations in a signalling pathway . nature , 436 , 792 . roux , p . p . and blenis , j . ( 2004 ) erk and p38 mapk - activated protein kinases : a family of protein kinases with diverse biological functions . microbiol mol biol rev , 68 , 320 - 344 . saitoh , m ., pullen , n ., brennan , p ., cantrell , d ., dennis , p . b . and thomas , g . ( 2002 ) regulation of an activated s6 kinase 1 variant reveals a novel mammalian target of rapamycin phosphorylation site . j . biol . chem ., 277 , 20104 - 20112 . scheid , m . p ., marignani , p . a . and woodgett , j . r . ( 2002 ) multiple phosphoinositide 3 - kinase - dependent steps in activation of protein kinase b . mol cell biol , 22 , 6247 - 6260 . smith , k . j ., carter , p . s ., bridges , a ., horrocks , p ., lewis , c ., pettman , g ., clarke , a ., brown , m ., hughes , j ., wilkinson , m ., bax , b . and reith , a . ( 2004 ) the structure of msk1 reveals a novel autoinhibitory conformation for a dual kinase protein . structure ( camb ), 12 , 1067 - 1077 . weng , q .- p ., kozlowski , m ., belham , c ., zhang , a ., comb , m . j . and avruch , j . ( 1998 ) regulation of the p70 s6 kinase by phosphorylation in vivo . analysis using site - specific anti - phosphopeptide antibodies . j . biol . chem ., 273 , 16621 - 16629 . yang , j ., cron , p ., good , v . m ., thompson , v ., hemmings , b . a . and barford , d . ( 2002a ) crystal structure of an activated akt / protein kinase b ternary complex with gsk3 - peptide and amp - pnp . nat struct biol , 9 , 940 - 944 . yang , j ., cron , p ., thompson , v ., good , v . m ., hess , d ., hemmings , b . a . and barford , d . ( 2002b ) molecular mechanism for the regulation of protein kinase b / akt by hydrophobic motif phosphorylation . mol cell , 9 , 1227 - 1240 . anti - p5386 rsk1 ab (# 06 - 826 ), detecting the phosphorylated hm of rsk , and anti - ps363 rsk1 ab (# 06 - 824 ), detecting the phosphorylated tail site of rsk , were from upstate biotechnology . anti - pt389 s6k1 ab (# 9205 ), detecting the phosphorylated hm of s6k , anti - ps371 s6k1 ab (# 9208 ), detecting the phosphorylated tail site of s6k , anti - pt308 pkb ab (# 9275 ), detecting the phosphorylated activation loop of pkb , anti - ps360 msk1 ab (# 9594 ), detecting the phosphorylated tail site of msk , and anti ps376 - msk1 ab (# 9591 ), detecting the phosphorylated hm of msk , were from cell signaling technology . anti - ps227 rsk2 ab (# sc - 12445 - r ), detecting the phosphorylated activation loop of rsk , anti - ps473 pkb ab (# sc - 7985 - r ), detecting the phosphorylated hm of pkb , anti - pt256 sgk ab (# sc - 16744 - r ), detecting the phosphorylated activation loop of s6k , prk , and pka , anti - pka ab (# sc - 903 ), and rabbit anti - ha ab (# sc - 805 ) for immunoblotting were from santa cruz biotechnologies . anti - pt641 pkcβ ab (# gtx25785 ), detecting the phosphorylated tail site of prk and pkb , were from genetex , inc . anti - ha ab for immunoprecipitation was from the 12ca5 mouse hybridoma cell line . pmt2 - ha - rsk2 ( mouse ) ( zhao et al ., 1996 ) was kindly provided by dr . christian bjørbæk ( beth israel hospital , boston , mass ., usa ). pece - pkbα - ha ( human ) and prk5 - gst - myc - s6k1 ( the rat 70 kda splice variant ) are described in kohn et al . ( 1995 ) and pullen et al . ( 1998 ), respectively . pcmv5 - myc - pdk1 ( human ) is described in jensen et al . ( 1999 ). pmt2 - ha - msk1 ( human ) is described in frodin et al . ( 2000 ). prk2 δ1 - 500 ( human ) and pebg - 2t - pkczeta ( human ) are described in balendran et al . ( 2000 ). pmt2 - ha - s6k1 1 - 364 ( rat ) is described in frodin et al . ( 2002 ). pebg - 2t - gst - s6k 1 - 365 ( rat ) was generated by pcr amplification of the desired p70 s6k1 sequence using a 5 ′ primer introducing a bamhi site and a 3 ′ primer introducing a stop codon and a kpni site . the pcr product was inserted in pebg - 2t vector digested with bamhi and kpni . pebg - 2t - pkb s473d ( human ) and pebg - 2t - δph - pkb s473d ( human ) are described in biondi et al . ( 2001 ). pkcι ( human ) was cloned into the pebg - 2t vector . pt7 - 7 - pka was kindly provided by dr . dirk bossemeyer ( german cancer research centre , heidelberg , germany ). plncx - ha - akt1 was kindly provided by william sellers ( addgene plasmid 9004 ) and is described in ramaswamy et al . ( 1999 ). point mutations were introduced using the quickchange mutagenesis procedure ( stratagene ) and confirmed by sequencing . potential phosphate - binding sites in the pkbβ structure pdb entry 1ok6 ( yang et al ., 2002a ) were identified using grid , version 2 . 2 , ( goodford , 1985 ) and grasp ( http :// trantor . bioc . columbia . edu / grasp /) which can compute energetically favourable binding sites for phosphate groups and electrostatic surface potentials of proteins , respectively . in 1ok6 , non - visible tail up until the tail phosphorylation site was ab initio modelled using the builder module in insight ii ( version 2005 ) from accelrys . the tail region between the tail site and the hm was generated with the random tweak algorithm in the homology module in insight ii . the kinase domain and tail / linker region of mouse rsk2 ( residues 62 - 387 ) and rat s6k1 ( residues 62 - 390 ) were homology modelled using the visible regions of 1ok6 as a template . the sequence identity of pkbβ and rsk2 or s6k1 is 45 % and 51 %, respectively . the tail region not visible in 1o6k was modelled as described above . fully constrained models were then surrounded by a box of water and subjected to dynamics simulation for 10 ps . thereafter , unconstrained models in water were subjected to dynamics simulation for 10 ps . before all dynamics simulations , energy minimization of the models was performed with 500 iterations using amber force field and the steepest descents algorithm in insight ii . the program procheck ( laskowski et al ., 1993 ) was used to validate the geometry of the models obtained after dynamics simulation . cos7 cells were cultured at 37 ° c ., in atmospheric air containing 5 % co 2 , in dulbecco &# 39 ; s modified eagle &# 39 ; s medium with glutamax ( gibco , # 31966 ) supplemented with 10 % foetal bovine serum , 100 u / ml penicillin and 100 μg / ml streptomycin . drosophila s2 cells were cultured at 25 ° c . in schneiders &# 39 ; drosophila medium with l - glutamine ( gibco , # 21720 ) supplemented with 10 % foetal bovine serum , 100 u / ml penicillin , and 100 μg / ml streptomycin . cos7 cells were transfected using lipofectamine 2000 reagent ( life technologies , inc .) or using fugene 6 reagent ( roche ) according to the manufacturers instructions , using 4 μg dna to 11 μl lipofectamine 2000 or 1 μg dna to 3 μl fugene 6 , respectively , per 9 . 6 cm 2 dish . drosophila s2 cells were transfected with fugene hd reagent ( roche ) according to the manufacturers instructions , using 2 μg dna to 4 μl fugene hd per 9 . 6 cm 2 dish . cells were harvested the following day ( cos7 cells ) or after 2 days ( drosophila s2 cells ) by solubilization for 15 min in 500 μl lysis buffer ( 0 . 5 % triton x - 100 , 150 mm nacl , 50 mm tris - hcl ( ph 7 . 5 ), 1 mm na 3 vo 4 , 5 mm edta , 50 mm naf , 10 nm calyculin a , 10 μm leupeptin , 5 μm pepstatin , 1 μg / ml aprotinin ) on ice and manipulated at & lt ; 4 ° c . thereafter . for kinase assays with s6k or prk2 , 1 mm dithiothreitol was added to the lysis buffer . cell extracts were clarified by centrifugation for 5 min at 18 , 000 g and the supernatant was incubated for 90 min with antibody with the addition of protein g agarose beads ( upstate ) during the final 30 min or with glutathione - sepharose beads ( amersham pharmacia biotech ) for 60 min . the beads were then precipitated by centrifugation , washed 5 times with lysis buffer , drained and dissolved in sds - page sample buffer ( 2 % sodium dodecyl sulfate , 62 mm tris - hcl ( ph 6 . 8 ), 10 % glycerol , 50 mm dithiothreitol , 0 . 12 % bromophenol blue ). for kinase assays , the final 2 washes were with buffer a ( 30 mm tris - hcl ( ph 7 . 5 ), 10 mm mgcl 2 , 1 mm dithiothreitol ). kinase protein amounts in precipitates were evaluated by subjecting the precipitate to sds - page and staining of the gel with simplyblue ™ protein staining ( invitrogen ) or immunoblotting with anti - ha ab . kinase assays for pkb , rsk , s6k , msk were done as described previously ( frodin et al ., 2002 ). agarose beads with precipitated kinase were resuspended in 20 μl 1 . 5 × buffer a . the kinase reaction was initiated by the addition of 10 μl ( final concentrations ) 100 μm atp ( 0 . 5 μci [ γ - 32 p ] atp ), and 130 μm s6 peptide ( rrlsslra ; in s6k and rsk assays ), or 143 μm crosstide ( grprtssfaeg ; in pkb and msk assays ), or 8 μm myelin basic protein ( in prk2 assays ). in pkcι and pkcζ assays 40 μm pkcζ substrate peptide ( siyrrgsrrwrkl from calbiochem ) was used . the specific activities of pkcι and pkcζ in these assays were similar to or higher than the specific activities of e . g . s6k and pkb using the well - established assays for these kinases . in zn 2 + site engineering experiments , zn 2 + was added to the precipitated kinases 5 min before the kinase assay was initiated . after 10 min of kinase reaction at 30 ° c . with vigorous shaking ( the reaction was linear with time in all of the assays ), 20 μl of the supernatant were removed and spotted onto phosphocellulose paper ( whatman p81 ). after washing with 150 mm orthophosphoric acid , [ 32 p ] phosphate incorporated into peptide substrate was quantified in an fla - 3000 apparatus ( fujifilm ). immunoblotting of precipitated kinases were performed as described ( jensen et al ., 1999 ) but with the following modifications . hybond - ecl nitrocellulose membranes ( amersham biosciences ) were used , and for immunoblots with the phosphospecific anti - ps360 msk1 ab , anti - ps376 msk1 ab and anti - ps363 rsk1 abs , baileys irish liquor were used for blocking , as this proved superior in blocking background staining with these ab compared to skimmed milk , which was used for all other immunoblots . expression and kinase assay of pka were done exactly as described ( batkin et al ., 2000 ) with minor modifications . specifically , we used rosetta ™ 2 ( de3 ) instead of bl21 ( de3 ) e . coli for expression , and the lysis buffer composition was slightly different . rosetta ™ 2 ( de3 ) ( novagen # 71400 ) was transformed with pt7 - 7 - pka expression constructs . fifty ml lb medium containing 50 μg / ml ampicillin and 37 μg / ml chloramphenicol were inoculated with 5 ml of a stationary phase culture of transformed rosetta ™ 2 ( de3 ), and the culture was grown at 37 ° c . with vigorous shaking until an absorbance of 0 . 4 - 0 . 6 at 600 nm was reached . protein expression was then induced by addition of 0 . 5 mm isopropyl - β - d - thiogalactopyranoside , and allowed to proceed for 4 hours . the bacteria were collected by centrifugation , resuspended in 32 ml buffer ( 20 mm tris - hcl ( ph 7 . 4 ), 1 . 5 mm mgcl 2 , 1 mm dithiothreitol , and 0 . 2 % triton x - 100 ), and lysed in an ultrasound disintegrator . insoluble material was removed by centrifugation at 25 . 000 g for 45 min at 4 ° c ., and the supernatant was snap frozen in liquid n 2 and stored at − 80 ° c . equal expression of wt and mutant pka was verified by immunoprecipitation with anti - pka ab , followed by sds - page and protein staining . for kinase assays , the supernatant was diluted appropriately ( typically ≈ 8 - times ), in a total of 20 μl 1 . 5 × buffer a ( 30 mm tris - hcl ( ph 7 . 5 ), 10 mm mgcl 2 , 1 mm dithiothreitol ). the kinase reaction was initiated by the addition of 10 μl ( final concentrations ) 100 μm atp ( 0 . 5 μci [ γ - 32 p ] atp ), and 108 μm kemptide ( lrraslg from calbiochem ). after 10 min at 30 ° c . with vigorous shaking ( the reaction was linear with time ) the kinase reaction was stopped and quantified as described under “ immuno complex kinase assays ”. ha - 56k 1 - 364 ( rat ) co - expressed with myc - pdk1 ( at the plasmid ratio 3 : 1 ) in cos7 cells was immunoprecipitated as described above . human pkbβ 143 - 479 ( i . e . a deletion mutant lacking the ph domain ) was expressed in insect cells as a his - tagged protein and purified by ni - nta sepharose chromatography , followed by cleavage of the his - tag with tev protease , re - purification through ni - nta sepharose and gel filtration . the protein was essentially pure as estimated by sds - page and ief . pkbβ 143 - 479 was then phosphorylated in vitro in the activation loop site ( t309 ) by incubation with gst - pdk1 , followed by removal of gst - pdk1 by precipitation with glutathione - sepharose beads . purified ha - s6k 1 - 364 was incubated with synthetic s6k1 ( rat ) tail peptides ( residues 366 - 395 ) 5 min prior to kinase assays , and purified pkbβ 143 - 479 was incubated with the synthetic peptide piftide ( reprilseeeqemfrdfdyiadwc ), or pt958 - piftide , a synthetic extended piftide phosphorylated at the tail site thr958 ( ilt 958 ppreprilseeeqemfrdfdyiadw ) 5 min prior to kinase assay . s6k1 ( rat ) tail peptides were & gt ; 98 % pure and synthesized by pepceuticals limited . they contained 3 extra c - terminal residues ( eek ) not present in s6k1 , that were added to allow c - terminal biotinylation for surface plasmon resonance measurements . purification of gst - s6k 1 - 365 and gst - pkc ; protein for surface plasmon resonance measurements and hydrogen exchange analysis . sixty 146 cm 2 dishes with cost cells were co - transfected with pebg - 2t - s6k 1 - 365 and pcmv5 - myc - pdk1 ( ratio 3 : 1 ) using calcium phosphate precipitation or with pebg - 2t - pkcζ and pcmv5 - myc - pdk1 ( ratio 3 : 1 ) using fugene hd according to the manufacturers instructions . two days after transfection , the cells were harvested in lysis buffer as described above . cell lysates were incubated with glutathione - sepharose beads for 60 min at 4 ° c . beads were then precipitated by centrifugation , washed 6 times with a high salt lysis buffer ( 0 . 5 % triton x - 100 , 500 mm nacl , 50 mm tris - hcl ( ph 7 . 4 )) and 3 times with elution buffer ( 10 mm hepes ( ph 7 . 4 ), 150 mm nacl , 0 . 005 % tween - 20 for surface plasmon resonance measurements or 25 mm tris - hcl ( ph 7 . 4 ), 150 mm nacl , 1 mm dithiothreitol for hydrogen exchange analysis ) and then drained . the proteins were then eluted with 25 mm glutathione and incubated for 10 min at room temperature with gentle shaking . the eluted protein comprised ˜ 60 % gst - fusion protein , ˜ 40 % free gst and few detectable protein impurities (& lt ; 5 %) as estimated by sds - page and protein staining . to remove free gst from gst - pkcζ fusion protein for local hydrogen exchange analysis , gst - pkcζ was purified by gel filtration on a superose 12 10 / 300 gl column ( ge healtcare # 17 - 5173 - 01 ), followed by upconcentration of gst - pkcζ on a centricon mw50 column . the purified gst - pkcζ was & gt ; 95 % pure as estimated by sds - page and protein staining . biacore analysis was performed as described in biondi et al . ( 2000 ). biotinylation of s6k1 tail peptides was performed as described in frodin et al . ( 2002 ). amide hydrogen ( 1 h / 2 h ) exchange monitored by mass spectrometry ( hxms ). d 2 o ( 99 . 9 atom % d ) was obtained from cambridge isotope laboratories . isotopic exchange was initiated by diluting 8 μl 20 - 40 μm protein in 300 μl deuterated buffer ( 25 mm tris , 150 mm nacl , 1 mm dithiothreitol , 10 mm mgcl 2 , 25 mm glutathione , pd 7 . 1 uncorrected value ). the exchange was carried out at 30 ° c ., and 75 μl aliquots were collected after 1 min , 5 min , 15 min , and 45 min . exchange was quenched by adding 5 μl quench solution ( 10 % tfa , 8 m guanidine chloride ) and snap - frozen in liquid nitrogen where samples were stored until further analysis . as a non - deuterated sample , 2 μl 20 - 40 μm protein was diluted in 5 μl quench solution and 75 μl water . in analysis of s6k1 1 - 365 and s6k tail peptides , s6k 1 - 365 was preincubated with peptides in a 150 molar excess on ice prior to isotopic exchange . the lc setup was described previously ( jorgensen et al ., 2004 ), with the modification that proteins were desalted for 5 min and eluted with a 9 min linear gradient ( 14 % to 70 % acetonitrile , 0 . 05 % tfa ) to separate the free gst from the gst - tagged kinases of interest in the global hydrogen exchange analysis . the lc system was coupled to an electrospray ionization quadrupole time - of - flight ( qtof ultima , micromass ) mass spectrometer . spray voltage was 3 . 5 kv , cone voltage 55 v , rf lens 1 voltage 100 v , and ion source block temperature 120 ° c . with a desolvation gas flow of 500 l / h at 200 ° c . and nebulizing gas flow of 20 l / h at room temperature . the protein charge state envelope was deconvoluted by the maxent 1 algorithm provided with the masslynx software . to monitor the hydrogen exchange at the peptide level , the protein was digested with pepsin by replacing the injection loop with a column with immobilized pepsin . the protein was digested for 1 min and resulting peptides were desalted and eluted as described above . the hxms data on peptide level were analyzed by hx - express ( weis et al ., 2006 ). examples of the primary data are shown in supplementary fig8 . balendran , a ., biondi , r . m ., cheung , p . c ., casamayor , a ., deak , m . and alessi , d . r . ( 2000 ) a 3 - phosphoinositide - dependent protein kinase - 1 ( pdk1 ) docking site is required for the phosphorylation of protein kinase czeta ( pkczeta ) and pkc - related kinase 2 by pdk1 . j biol chem , 275 , 20806 - 20813 . batkin , m ., schvartz , i . and shaltiel , s . ( 2000 ) snapping of the carboxyl terminal tail of the catalytic subunit of pka onto its core : characterization of the sites by mutagenesis . biochemistry , 39 , 5366 - 5373 . biondi , r . m ., cheung , p . c ., casamayor , a ., deak , m ., currie , r . a . and alessi , d . r . ( 2000 ) identification of a pocket in the pdk1 kinase domain that interacts with pif and the c - terminal residues of pka . embo j ., 19 , 979 - 988 . biondi , r . m ., kieloch , a ., currie , r . a ., deak , m . and alessi , d . r . ( 2001 ) the pif - binding pocket in pdk1 is essential for activation of s6k and sgk , but not pkb . embo j ., 20 , 4380 - 4390 . frodin , m ., antal , t . l ., dummler , b . a ., jensen , c . j ., deak , m ., gammeltoft , s , and biondi , r . m . ( 2002 ) a phosphoserine / threonine - binding pocket in agc kinases and pdk1 mediates activation by hydrophobic motif phosphorylation . embo j ., 21 , 5396 - 5407 . frodin , m ., jensen , c . j ., merienne , k . and gammeltoft , s . ( 2000 ) a phosphoserine - regulated docking site in the protein kinase rsk2 that recruits and activates pdk1 . embo j ., 19 , 2924 - 2934 . goodford , p . j . ( 1985 ) a computational procedure for determining energetically favorable binding sites on biologically important macromolecules . j med chem , 28 , 849 - 857 . jensen , c . j ., buch , m .- b ., krag , t . o ., hemmings , b . a ., gammeltoft , s . and frodin , m . ( 1999 ) 90 - kda ribosomal s6 kinase is phosphorylated and activated by 3 - phosphoinositide - dependent protein kinase - 1 . j . biol . chem ., 274 , 27168 - 27176 . jorgensen , t . j ., gardsvoll , h ., dano , k ., roepstorff , p . and ploug , m . ( 2004 ) dynamics of urokinase receptor interaction with peptide antagonists studied by amide hydrogen exchange and mass spectrometry . biochemistry , 43 , 15044 - 15057 . kohn , a . d ., kovacina , k . s . and roth , r . a . ( 1995 ) insulin stimulates the kinase activity of rac - pk , a pleckstrin homology domain containing ser / thr kinase . embo j , 14 , 4288 - 4295 . laskowski , r . a ., moss , d . s . and thornton , j . m . ( 1993 ) main - chain bond lengths and bond angles in protein structures . j mol biol , 231 , 1049 - 1067 . pullen , n ., dennis , p . b ., andjelkovic , m ., duiher , a ., kozma , s . c ., hemmings , b . a . and thomas , g . ( 1998 ) phosphorylation and activation of p70s6k by pdk1 . science , 279 , 707 - 710 . ramaswamy , s ., nakamura , n ., vazquez , f ., batt , d . b ., perera , s ., roberts , t . m . and sellers , w . r . ( 1999 ) regulation of g1 progression by the pten tumor suppressor protein is linked to inhibition of the phosphatidylinositol 3 - kinase / akt pathway . proc natl acad sci usa , 96 , 2110 - 2115 . weis , d . d ., engen , j . r . and kass , i . j . ( 2006 ) semi - automated data processing of hydrogen exchange mass spectra using hx - express . j am soc mass spectrom , 17 , 1700 - 1703 . yang , j ., cron , p ., good , v . m ., thompson , v ., hemmings , b . a . and barford , d . ( 2002a ) crystal structure of an activated akt / protein kinase b ternary complex with gsk3 - peptide and amp - pnp . nat struct biol , 9 , 940 - 944 . zhao , y ., bjorbak , c . and moller , d . e . ( 1996 ) regulation and interaction of pp 90rsk isoforms with mitogen - activated protein kinases . j . biol . chem ., 271 , 29773 - 29779 . pdk1 activity was measured at room temperature using a polypeptide substrate derived from the activation loop phosphorylation site of pkb , t308tide ( 0 . 1 mm ). the listed data indicate the basal activity of the kinases ( u / mg ), their relative activity as a comparison to gst - pdk1 wt (%), ac 50 ( μm ) as well as the maximal activity in the presence of piftide and compound 1 ( u / mg ). gst - pdk1 wt was purified in numerous occasions and the maximal activation level of different batches varied between 3 and 8 fold activation with piftide or compound 1 . variations in the basal activity and fold activation were also observed in mutants . therefore , comparisons in the maximal level of activation between mutants should be performed with care . the data shown are from an experiment where piftide concentrations were tested between 50 nm and 20 □ m and compound 1 concentrations were between 5 μm and 200 μm , in triplicate . ac 50 and max . activity were estimated by fitting the data to a hyperbola using kaleidagraph software . one unit of pdk1 activity was defined as the amount required to catalyse the phosphorylation of 1 nmol of the t308tide in 1 min . nd , not determined ; no effect , addition of piftide or compound 1 did not have any effect on the basal activity (−) of the mutant kinase ; inh , the addition of piftide to this mutant inhibited its activity ; na , the data could not be accurately estimated within the concentrations tested . specificity of low molecular weight compounds towards pdk1 and a panel of agc kinases . basic scaffold indicating positions of r1 , r2 , r3 and r4 ; effect of r1 , r2 , r3 and r4 activity assays for each kinase were performed as described in materials and methods in the presence of 1 % dmso ( 100 %). except pka , all protein kinases were produced as a gst - fusion . s6k1 , pkbα , sgk mutants used were s6k1 - t2 -[ thr412glu ], pkba [ ser473asp ] and δn - sgk [ ser422asp ].