Movement of various cargoes toward microtubule minus ends is driven by the microtubule motor cytoplasmic dynein (CD). Many cargoes are motile only during certain cell cycle phases, suggesting that CD function may be under cell cycle control. Phosphorylation of the CD light intermediate chain (DLIC) has been suggested to play a crucial role in modulating CD function during the Xenopus embryonic cell cycle, where CD-driven organelle movement is active in interphase but greatly reduced in metaphase. This down-regulation correlates with hyperphosphorylation of DLIC and release of CD from the membrane. Here we investigate the role of the key mitotic kinase, cdc2-cyclinB1, in this process. We show that DLIC within the native Xenopus CD complex is an excellent substrate for purified Xenopus cdc2-glutathione S-transferase (GST) cyclinB1 (cdc2-GSTcyclinB1) kinase. Mass spectrometry of native DLIC revealed that a conserved cdc2 site (Ser-197) previously implicated in the metaphase modulation of CD remains phosphorylated in interphase and so is unlikely to be the key regulatory site. We also demonstrate that incubating interphase membranes with cdc2-GSTcyclinB1 kinase results in substantial release of CD from the membrane. These data suggest that phosphorylation of DLIC by cdc2 kinase leads directly to the loss of membrane-associated CD and an inhibition of organelle movement.

The ubiquitous transcription factor upstream stimulatory factor (USF) 1 is a member of the bzHLH (leucine zipper-basic-helix-loop-helix) family, which is structurally related to the Myc family of proteins. It plays a role in the regulation of many genes, including the cyclin B1 gene, which is active during the G2/M and M phases of the cell cycle and may also play a role in the regulation of cellular proliferation. We show that the affinity of recombinant USF-1 for DNA is greatly increased by treatment with active cyclin A2-p34(cdc2) or cyclin B1-p34(cdc2) complexes and that its interaction with DNA is dependent on p34(cdc2)-mediated phosphorylation. We have localized the phosphorylation site(s) to a region that lies outside the minimal DNA-binding domain but overlaps with the previously identified USF-specific region. Deletion studies of USF-1 suggest that amino acids 143-197 regulate DNA-binding activity in a phosphorylation-dependent manner.

This study shows that electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS), combined with a heated turbo ion-spray interface, allows monitoring protein stabilization by glycerol in solution. Measurements obtained with the two proteins lysozyme and cytochrome c are presented. The observed mass-to-charge (m/z) distributions reveal the stabilizing effect of the additive on the protein conformations against temperature and acid-induced unfolding, as well as against denaturation by acetonitrile. The data obtained with lysozyme allow detection of minor conformational changes upon glycerol addition to the native protein, and suggest that the protein structure in the presence of the additive is slightly compressed compared with its state in water. This result corroborates previous evidence obtained by nuclear magnetic resonance. It is also shown that analysis of the m/z distributions obtained by ESI-MS can lead to detection of partially folded and partially populated states in protein samples.

The ubiquitous transcription factor upstream stimulatory factor (USF) 1 is a member of the bzHLH (leucine zipper-basic-helix-loop-helix) family, which is structurally related to the Myc family of proteins. It plays a role in the regulation of many genes, including the cyclin B1 gene, which is active during the G2/M and M phases of the cell cycle and may also play a role in the regulation of cellular proliferation. We show that the affinity of recombinant USF-1 for DNA is greatly increased by treatment with active cyclin A2-p34(cdc2) or cyclin B1-p34(cdc2) complexes and that its interaction with DNA is dependent on p34(cdc2)-mediated phosphorylation. We have localized the phosphorylation site(s) to a region that lies outside the minimal DNA-binding domain but overlaps with the previously identified USF-specific region. Deletion studies of USF-1 suggest that amino acids 143-197 regulate DNA-binding activity in a phosphorylation-dependent manner.

No abstract