Fission yeast LAMMER kinase Lkh1 regulates the cell cycle by phosphorylating the CDK-inhibitor Rum1

► Deletion of lkh1+ made cells pass the G1/S phase faster than the wild type. ► Lkh1 can interact with a cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor (CKI) Rum1. ► Lkh1 can phosphorylate Rum1 to activate its CKI activity. ► Thr110 was confirmed as the Lkh1-dependent phosphorylation site of Rum1. ► Positive acting mechanism for the Rum1 activation is reported for the first time. In eukaryotes, LAMMER kinases are involved in various cellular events, including the cell cycle. However, no attempt has been made to investigate the mechanisms that underlie the involvement of LAMMER kinase. In this study, we performed a functional analysis of LAMMER kinase using the fission yeast, Schizosaccharomyces pombe. FACS analyses revealed that deletion of the gene that encodes the LAMMER kinase Lkh1 made mutant cells pass through the G1/S phase faster than their wild-type counterparts. Co-immunoprecipitation and an in vitro kinase assay also revealed that Lkh1 can interact with and phosphorylate Rum1 to activate this molecule as a cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor, which blocks cell cycle progression from the G1 phase to the S phase. Peptide mass fingerprinting and kinase assay with Rum1T110A confirmed T110 as the Lkh1-dependent phosphorylation residue. In this report we present for the first time a positive acting mechanism that is responsible for the CKI activity of Rum1, in which the LAMMER kinase-mediated phosphorylation of Rum1 is involved.