Amino acid sequence of protein B23 phosphorylation site.

A major phosphopeptide labeled in vivo, was identified in nucleolar protein B23 (Mr/pI = 37,000/5.1) after tryptic digestion. This peptide was purified by high performance liquid chromatography using reverse-phase (C8 and C18) columns. The phosphopeptide contains 20 amino acids including 1 phosphoserine, 7 glutamic acids, and 4 aspartic acids. The amino acid sequence is: His-Leu-Val-Ala-Val-Glu-Glu-Asp-Ala-Glu-Ser(P)-Glu-Asp-Glu-Asp- Glu-Glu-Asp-Val-Lys. This amino acid sequence is similar to that of nucleolar phosphoprotein C23 (8 consecutive amino acids were identical), and to the regulatory subunit (RII) of cAMP-dependent protein kinase (7 consecutive amino acids were identical, which is phosphorylated by casein kinase II (Carmichael, D.F., Geahlen, R.L., Allen, S.M., and Krebs, E.G. (1982) J. Biol. Chem 257, 10440-10445). The regions near these phosphorylation sites are enriched with glutamic and aspartic acids, suggesting that this acidic amino acid cluster may be essential for kinase recognition.