Abstract

ABSTRACT The ATP‐dependent phosphorylation activity of cyclin‐dependent kinase 1 (CDK1), an essential enzyme for cell cycle progression, is regulated by interactions with Cyclin‐B, substrate, and Cks proteins. We have recently shown that active site acetylation in CDK1 abrogated binding to Cyclin‐B which posits an intriguing long‐range communication between the catalytic site and the protein–protein interaction (PPI) interface. Now, we demonstrate a general allosteric link between the CDK1 active site and all three of its PPI interfaces through atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Specifically, we examined ATP binding free energies to CDK1 in native nonacetylated (K33wt) and acetylated (K33Ac) forms as well as the acetyl‐mimic K33Q and the acetyl‐null K33R mutant forms, which are accessible in vitro. In agreement with experiments, ATP binding is stronger in K33wt relative to the other three perturbed states. Free energy decomposition reveals, in addition to expected local changes, significant and selective nonlocal entropic responses to ATP binding/perturbation of K33 from the ‐helix, activation loop (A‐loop), and ‐H segments in CDK1 which interface with Cyclin‐B, substrate, and Cks proteins, respectively. Statistical analysis reveals that while entropic responses of protein segments to active site perturbations are on average correlated with their dynamical changes, such correlations are lost in about 9%–48% of the dataset depending on the segment. Besides proving the bi‐directional communication between the active site and the CDK1:Cyclin‐B interface, our study uncovers a hitherto unknown mode of ATP binding regulation by multiple PPI interfaces in CDK1.