The phosphorylation of cyclin D1 at threonine 286 by glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK3) has been shown to be required for the ubiquitination and nuclear export of cyclin D1 and its subsequent degradation in the proteasome. The mutation of the nearby residue, threonine 288, to nonphosphorylatable alanine has also been shown to reduce the ubiquitination of cyclin D1, suggesting that phosphorylation at threonine 288 may also lead to degradation of cyclin D1. We now demonstrate that the G 0 /G 1 -active arginine-directed protein kinase Mirk/dyrk1B binds to cyclin D1 and phosphorylates cyclin D1 at threonine 288 in vivo and that the cyclin D1-T288A construct is more stable than wild-type cyclin Cell cycle progression in eukaryotic cells is mediated by cyclin-dependent kinases (CDKs). 1 The D-type cyclins, D1, D2, and D3, increase in nuclear abundance in G 1 in response to mitogens, facilitate the import of CDK4 into the nucleus (1), and assemble combinatorially with CDK4 or CDK6 into complexes that phosphorylate the retinoblastoma protein, releasing factors needed for the progression into S phase. Cyclin D1 is translocated into the cytoplasm during S phase where it is destroyed by the proteasome following phosphorylation at threonine 286 by GSK3 (2, 3). Mutant cyclin D1-T286A, which cannot be phosphorylated by GSK3, is stabilized in the nucleus and is capable of transforming murine fibroblasts, whereas overexpression of wild-type cyclin D1 cannot act alone to transform such cells (4). A cyclin D1 isoform derived by alternative splicing was shown to lack threonine 286, enabling this cyclin D1 isoform to remain nuclear throughout the cell cycle, remain highly expressed, and function to facilitate transformation of NIH3T3 cells (5). This cyclin D1 splice variant was also found in tumor-derived cells and primary human esophageal tumors (5). Overexpression of cyclin D1 occurs in several cancers including breast, pancreatic, and esophageal (6), suggesting that either increased transcription, transcription of stable splice variants, or dysregulation of cyclin D1 turnover may frequently occur in cancer.In this study, we have studied the interaction of the ubiquitously expressed protein kinase Mirk/dyrk1B with cyclin D1. Mirk/dyrk1B is an arginine-directed serine/threonine kinase (7), which functions as a transcriptional co-activator and is activated through the stress-activated mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase MKK3 (8). We have shown recently that Mirk stabilizes the CDK inhibitor p27kip1 in the G 0 phase of the cell cycle in NIH3T3 fibroblasts, whereas depletion of Mirk by RNA interference increases cell cycling as measured by increased PCNA expression (9). Mirk expression is decreased by mitogen activation of the MEK-ERK pathway during G 1 (10), restricting Mirk function primarily to G 0 and early G 1 . We now confirm that transient overexpression of Mirk in nontransformed Mv1Lu lung epithelial cells increases the length of G 0 /G 1 by FACS analysis and that Mirk targets the G 1 cell cycle regulator, cyclin D1, t...