Forkhead Box M1B Transcriptional Activity Requires Binding of Cdk-Cyclin Complexes for Phosphorylation-Dependent Recruitment of p300/CBP Coactivators

Abstract

Previous liver regeneration studies demonstrated that the mouse forkhead box M1B (FoxM1B) transcription factor regulates hepatocyte proliferation through expression of cell cycle genes that stimulate cyclin-dependent kinase 2 (Cdk2) and Cdk1 activity. In this study, we demonstrated that disruption of the FoxM1B Cdk1/2 phosphorylation site at Thr residue 596 significantly reduced both FoxM1B transcriptional activity and Cdk phosphorylation of the FoxM1B T596A mutant protein in vivo. Retention of this FoxM1B 596 Cdk phosphorylation site was found to be essential for recruiting the histone acetyltransferase CREB binding protein (CBP) to the FoxM1B transcriptional activation domain. Consistent with these findings, dominant negative Cdk1 protein significantly reduced FoxM1B transcriptional activity and inhibited FoxM1B recruitment of the CBP coactivator protein. Likewise, Cdc25B-mediated stimulation of Cdk activity together with elevated levels of the CBP coactivator protein provided a 6.2-fold synergistic increase in FoxM1B transcriptional activity. Furthermore, mutation of the FoxM1B Leu 641 residue within an LXL motif (residues 639 to 641) inhibited recruitment of Cdk-cyclin complexes and caused significant reduction in both FoxM1B transcriptional activity and in vivo Cdk phosphorylation of the FoxM1B Thr 596 residue. We demonstrated that FoxM1B transcriptional activity requires binding of either S-phase or M-phase Cdk-cyclin complexes to mediate efficient Cdk phosphorylation of the FoxM1B Thr 596 residue, which is essential for recruitment of p300/CBP coactivator proteins.

We thank P. Raychaudhuri, X. Wang, Y. Tan, V. Kalinichenko, Y. Zhou, and F. Rausa for critically reviewing the manuscript, and we thank P. Raychaudhuri for helpful discussions. We also thank a number of investigators who provided us with dominant negative kinase expression vectors; these include Ravi Misra (Medical College of Wisconsin) for DN-RasN17, John Blenis (Harvard Medical School) for DN-p90Rsk, Nissim Hay (University of Illinois at Chicago) for DN-Akt, Helen Piwnica-Worms (Washington University) for WT-Myt1, and David Ucker (University of Illinois at Chicago) for DN-Cdk1.

This work was supported by NIH grant DK 54687-06 from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (R.H.C.).