| Summary: | CK2 is a ubiquitous serine/threonine protein kinase implicated in numerous cellular processes as well as in tumorigenesis. CK2 is composed of two catalytic (αα, αα’, α’α’) subunits and two regulatory (ββ) subunits that assemble to form the active CK2 holoenzyme. CK2 has been shown to phosphorylate, interact with, and regulate other proteins, including other protein kinases. CK2 substrates can be initially bound by the CK2β regulatory subunit, which acts as a docking site to facilitate phosphorylation and mediate CK2 substrate specificity. In a screen to identify novel CK2β interacting proteins, I identified three novel CK2β interactors, including the mitogen- and stress-activated kinase 2 (MSK2), which I pursued for further characterization.
MSK2, and the closely related isoform MSK1, are nuclear kinases that are activated following mitogen stimulation or cellular stress, including UV radiation, by the ERK1/2 and p38-MAPK signaling cascades, respectively. However, factors that differentially regulate MSK1 and MSK2 have not been well characterized. In my thesis, I demonstrate that CK2, which contributes to NF-κB activation following UV radiation in a p38-dependent manner, physically interacts with MSK2 but not MSK1 and that CK2 inhibition specifically impairs UV-induced MSK2 kinase activation. A putative site of CK2 phosphorylation was mapped to MSK2 residue serine-324 and when substituted to alanine (S324A) also compromised MSK2 activity. RNA interference-mediated depletion of MSK2 in human MDA-MB-231 cells, but not MSK1 depletion, resulted in impaired UV-induced phosphorylation of NF-κB p65 at serine-276 in vivo, which was restored by the ectopic expression of MSK2 but not by MSK2-S324A. Furthermore, UV-induced p65 transactivation capacity was dependent on MSK2, MSK2 residue S324, and p65-S276. These results suggest that MSK1 and MSK2 are differentially regulated by CK2 during the UV response and that MSK2 is the major protein kinase responsible for the UV-induced phosphorylation of p65 at S276 that positively regulates NF-κB activity in MDA-MB-231 cells.
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