Summary Cdk7, the CDK-activating kinase and transcription factor IIH component, is a target of inhibitors that kill cancer cells by exploiting tumor-specific transcriptional dependencies. However, whereas selective inhibition of analog-sensitive (AS) Cdk7 in colon cancer-derived cells arrests division and disrupts transcription, it does not by itself trigger apoptosis efficiently. Here we show that p53 activation by 5-fluorouracil or nutlin-3 synergizes with a reversible Cdk7as inhibitor to induce cell death. Synthetic lethality was recapitulated with covalent inhibitors of wild-type Cdk7, THZ1 or the more selective YKL-1-116. The effects were allele-specific; a CDK7as mutation conferred both sensitivity to bulky adenine analogs and resistance to covalent inhibitors. Non-transformed colon epithelial cells were resistant to these combinations, as were cancer-derived cells with p53-inactivating mutations. Apoptosis was dependent on death receptor DR5, a p53 transcriptional target whose expression was refractory to Cdk7 inhibition. Therefore, p53 activation induces transcriptional dependency to sensitize cancer cells to Cdk7 inhibition.

During G 1 -phase of the cell cycle, normal cells respond first to growth factors that indicate that it is appropriate to divide and then later in G 1 to the presence of nutrients that indicate sufficient raw material to generate two daughter cells. Dividing cells rely on the "conditionally essential" amino acid glutamine (Q) as an anaplerotic carbon source for TCA cycle intermediates and as a nitrogen source for nucleotide biosynthesis. We previously reported that while non-transformed cells arrest in the latter portion of G 1 upon Q deprivation, mutant KRas-driven cancer cells bypass the G 1 checkpoint, and instead, arrest in S-phase. In this study, we report that the arrest of KRas-driven cancer cells in S-phase upon Q deprivation is due to the lack of deoxynucleotides needed for DNA synthesis. The lack of deoxynucleotides causes replicative stress leading to activation of the ataxia telangiectasia and Rad3-related protein (ATR)-mediated DNA damage pathway, which arrests cells in S-phase. The key metabolite generated from Q utilization was aspartate, which is generated from a transaminase reaction whereby Q-derived glutamate is converted to ␣-ketoglutarate with the concomitant conversion of oxaloacetate to aspartate. Aspartate is a critical metabolite for both purine and pyrimidine nucleotide biosynthesis. This study identifies the molecular basis for the S-phase arrest caused by Q deprivation in KRas-driven cancer cells that arrest in S-phase in response to Q deprivation. Given that arresting cells in S-phase sensitizes cells to apoptotic insult, this study suggests novel therapeutic approaches to KRas-driven cancers.

Reversible phosphorylation of Pol II and accessory factors helps order the 12 transcription cycle. Here we define two kinase-phosphatase switches that operate 13 at different points in human transcription. Cdk9/cyclin T1 (P-TEFb) catalyzes 14 inhibitory phosphorylation of PP1 and PP4 complexes that localize to 3' and 5' 15 ends of genes, respectively, and have overlapping but distinct specificities for 16Cdk9-dependent phosphorylations of Spt5, a factor instrumental in promoter-17 proximal pausing and elongation-rate control. PP1 dephosphorylates an Spt5 18 carboxy-terminal repeat (CTR), but not Spt5-Ser666, a site between KOW motifs 4 19 and 5, whereas PP4 can target both sites. In vivo, Spt5-CTR phosphorylation 20 decreases as transcription complexes pass the cleavage and polyadenylation 21 signal (CPS) and increases upon PP1 depletion, consistent with a PP1 function in 22In fission yeast, chemical-genetic inhibition of Cdk9 led to rapid, nearly complete 130 dephosphorylation of the Spt5 CTD (T1/2 ~20 sec); the rate of decay decreased ~4-fold in 131 dis2 mutant strains, suggesting that the fast kinetics in dis2 + cells were partly due to the 132 concomitant activation of Dis2 (PP1) when Cdk9 is inactivated 27 . In HCT116 cells, both 133 pThr806 and a phosphorylation outside the CTRs, pSer666, were lost rapidly upon 134 treatment with 250 nM NVP-2 (T1/2 ~10 min), consistent with a similar, reinforcing effect 135 of kinase inhibition and phosphatase activation (Fig. 1d). 136 137