bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/571844; this version posted March 8, 2019. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. An evolutionary-conserved redox regulatory mechanism in human Ser/Thr protein kinases Dominic P. Byrne1*, Safal Shrestha2,3, Natarajan Kannan2.3 and Patrick A. Eyers1* 1 Department of Biochemistry, Institute of Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7ZB, UK 2 Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA 3 Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA * Correspondence to
[email protected] or
[email protected] ONE-SENTENCE SUMMARY: The catalytic activity of Ser/Thr kinases is regulated through a conserved Cys-based redox mechanism. ABSTRACT: Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are products of oxygen metabolism, but are also recognized as endogenous physiological mediators of cellular signaling. Eukaryotic protein kinase (ePK) regulation occurs through reversible phosphorylation events in the flexible activation segment. In this study, we demonstrate that the catalytic phosphotransferase output from the mitotic Ser/Thr kinase Aurora A is also controlled by cysteine (Cys) oxidation. Reversible regulation occurs by direct modification of a conserved residue (Cys 290), which lies adjacent to Thr 288, the activating site of phosphorylation. Strikingly, redox modulation of the Cys 290-equivalent in other ePKs is predicted to be an underappreciated regulatory mechanism, since ~100 human Ser/Thr kinases possess a Cys at this position in the conserved activation loop.