The 44-kDa regulatory subunit of the Paramecium cAMP-dependent protein kinase lacks a dimerization domain and may have a unique autophosphorylation site sequence

The 44-kDa regulatory subunit (R44) of one form of cAMP-dependent protein kinase of Paramecium was purified, and two partial internal amino acid sequences from it were used to clone the corresponding cDNA. This R44 cDNA clone was 1022-bp long, including 978 bp of coding sequence and 7 bp and 37 bp of 5' and 3' untranslated sequences, respectively. A 1.1-kb mRNA was labeled on a Northern blot. The deduced R44 amino acid sequence had 31%-38% positional identity to the sequences of other cloned cAMP-dependent protein kinase regulatory subunits. R44 sequence showed equal sequence similarity to mammalian types I and II regulatory subunits. The N-terminal sequence encoding the regulatory subunit dimerization domain found in most regulatory subunits is not present in the R44 clone, confirming the lack of regulatory subunit dimer formation previously reported for the Paramecium cAMP-dependent protein kinase. The putative autophosphorylation site of R44 contains the amino acid sequence TRTS, distinct from the consensus sequence RRXS, where X is any residue, found in other autophosphorylated cAMP-dependent protein kinase regulatory subunits and many cAMP-dependent protein kinase substrates.