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Characterization of Association of Actin Cytoskeleton with Cdk5/p35 Kinase
Zhao-Jun Zhang1,2, Zhong Qi2*, Ming-Qiang Qiao1*
1Department of Microbiology, School of Life Science, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China; 2Department of Biochemistry, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
Abstract: Cdk5 is a small serine/threonine kinase and its activity requires association with its neuronal specific regulatory subunits. p35 is one of two regulatory subunits for Cdk5. Although the regulation of actin cytoskeleton is one of the most important functions of Cdk5/p35 kinase in neuronal central system， it is still unclear whether the actin cytoskeleton is associated with Cdk5/p35 kinase. In this study， the association of Cdk5/p35 kinase with actin cytoskeleton was characterized using several different methods. The present results demonstrated actin cytoskeleton was identified as one major component of Cdk5/p35 macrocomplex and p35 can directly bind to filamentous actin. Thus we deduce that Cdk5 might associate with actin cytoskeleton via its regulatory subunit p35 in brain to further regulate the actin cytoskeleton dynamics.
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