Nature 2022
a, Kinome tree representation of the selectivity of OTS964 (at 1 µM concentration) in the Eurofins panel of 412 human kinases. The size of the red circles shows the percentage of inhibition of kinase activity. The green circle corresponds to CDK11. The percentage of CDK11 inhibition was derived from IVKAs presented in b and Fig. 3f The blue circle corresponds to TOPK. The percentage of TOPK inhibition was estimated from the published IC50 = 353 nM and Extended Data Fig. 1b. b, Immunoblots of IVKAs of Flag-tagged (F) CDK11 WT, G579S and kinase dead (KD) mutants (left), or Flag-tagged CDK9 WT and KD mutant (right) phosphorylation of glutathione-S-transferase (GST)-tagged RNAPIICTD substrate with the indicated concentrations of OTS964. c, The percentage of normalized NanoBRET ratio for CDK11/cyclin L2 or CDK9/cyclin T1 after OTS964 or control dinaciclib treatment. n = 2 biologically independent replicates; a representative replicate is shown. d, Immunoblot analysis of proteins after treatment of cells with OTS964 for 4 h. Short and long indicate short and long exposures of the film.
Significance
RNA splicing, the process of intron removal from pre-mRNA, is essential for the regulation of gene expression. It is controlled by the spliceosome, a megadalton RNA–protein complex that assembles de novo on each pre-mRNA intron through an ordered assembly of intermediate complexes. Spliceosome activation is a major control step that requires substantial protein and RNA rearrangements leading to a catalytically active complex. Splicing factor 3B subunit 1 (SF3B1) protein—a subunit of the U2 small nuclear ribonucleoprotein—is phosphorylated during spliceosome activation, but the kinase that is responsible has not been identified. Here we show that cyclin-dependent kinase 11 (CDK11) associates with SF3B1 and phosphorylates threonine residues at its N terminus during spliceosome activation. The phosphorylation is important for the association between SF3B1 and U5 and U6 snRNAs in the activated spliceosome, termed the Bact complex, and the phosphorylation can be blocked by OTS964, a potent and selective inhibitor of CDK11. Inhibition of CDK11 prevents spliceosomal transition from the precatalytic complex B to the activated complex Bact and leads to widespread intron retention and accumulation of non-functional spliceosomes on pre-mRNAs and chromatin. We demonstrate a central role of CDK11 in spliceosome assembly and splicing regulation and characterize OTS964 as a highly selective CDK11 inhibitor that suppresses spliceosome activation and splicing.
Hluchý, M., Gajdušková, P., Ruiz de los Mozos, I., Rájecký, M., Kluge, M., Berger, B-T., Slabá, Z., Potěšil, D., Weiß, E., Ule, J., Zdráhal, Z., Knapp, S., Paruch, K., Friedel, C.C., and Blažek, D.:
CDK11 regulates pre-mRNA splicing by phosphorylation of SF3B1, Nature. (2022) 609, 829-834. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05204-z