Oncofusion

start / graph / interface-psip1-ibd-kmt2a-phosphoswitch

Interfacemoderate confidence 3 of 5: One strong study, or several smaller consistent ones.Q22-phospho-contacts

CK2 phosphorylation of KMT2A S136/S142 tunes the LEDGF grip - a second, non-menin, phospho-gated handle on the fragment every fusion keeps

also called MLL1 IBM phosphoswitch · KMT2A S136/S142 · LEDGF IBM affinity switch · CK2-MLL1-LEDGF

The broken KMT2A protein is usually described as having only one grip a drug can attack, the one menin holds. There is a second grip, held by a protein called LEDGF, and a cell enzyme called CK2 tightens it by adding phosphate to two spots that every leukaemia fusion keeps.

The same thing, for a scientist

LEDGF/p75 (PSIP1) binds KMT2A through an IBD-binding motif (IBM) mapped to **KMT2A 111-160**, the same stretch that carries the reported hot-spot residues Phe148/Phe151. Sharma et al. show the IBM class is a **phospho-switch**: phosphorylation of IBM serines raises IBD affinity 2- to 10-fold, and on KMT2A the relevant residues are **S136 and S142**, which UniProt curates from that paper as 'Phosphoserine; by CK2'. **S136A/S142A significantly reduced the transformation capacity of MLL1 fusions in colony assays, and the phosphomimetic S136D/S142D almost fully rescued it.** Both residues sit at about 3.4% of the way along a 3,969-residue protein, far N-terminal to the breakpoint cluster region, so **they are retained by every KMT2A fusion**. This is a documented, functionally tested, kinase-gated contact on the retained fragment that is not the menin interface - the direct contradiction this beat was sent to look for.

Go deeper
Where the residues are, in this project's own numbering

Q03164 residues 110-165 read:

110 PGFDAALQVSAAIGTNLRRFRAVFGESGGGGGSGEDEQFLGFGSDEEVRVRSPTRS 165
                              ^S136       ^S142  ^F148 ^F151

The graph's existing entry interface-psip1-ibd-kmt2a maps the LEDGF contact to KMT2A 140-160 with Phe148 and Phe151 as key residues. S142 lies inside that window and S136 four residues outside it; the Sharma IBM construct is MLL1 111-160, which contains both 1. So the phospho-switch and the structural hot spot describe the same interface, not two different ones.

S142 matches the minimal CK2 consensus S-x-x-D/E (S142-G143-E144-D145) in the canonical sequence. S136 does not match the minimal consensus; its assignment to CK2 rests on the experimental work curated by UniProt rather than on the motif 2.

Why this is a second handle and not a restatement of menin

In the ternary crystal structure 3U88, menin holds KMT2A 103-153 while the LEDGF IBD holds an adjacent stretch of the same chain - a composite clamp, not competing sites 3. Menin inhibitors occupy the menin pocket that receives MBM1 (KMT2A residues about 6-10). They do not occupy the IBD.

That leaves the IBM arm of the clamp with its own chemistry and its own upstream kinase. A CK2 inhibitor would act on the clamp through a completely different molecular route from revumenib, and resistance mutations in MEN1 have no reason to protect it.

The honest qualification: the clamp is composite, so the IBM contact is not menin-independent in the sense of working without menin in cells. It is menin-pocket-independent, which is the property that matters for a second therapeutic axis.

What was actually measured, and what was not

Measured: a 2- to 10-fold affinity increase on phosphorylation across the IBM family; a significant loss of transformation capacity for the S136A/S142A fusion in colony-forming assays of murine stem cells transformed with an MLL1 fusion; near-full rescue by S136D/S142D 1.

Not measured, in the text we could read: a dissociation constant for the KMT2A IBM against the LEDGF IBD, phosphorylated or not. That number does not exist anywhere in this graph either - interface-psip1-ibd-kmt2a records kd_nM: null and calls it the largest quantitative gap in the partner dossier. So the fold-change is a class statement and the KMT2A-specific affinity is still unmeasured.

Also not tested in that paper: a CK2 inhibitor against the KMT2A IBM. TBB was used on POGZ. The CK2-inhibitor arm of this axis is an inference, not a result.

Facts and figures
partner agene-psip1
partner bgene-kmt2a
motif bKMT2A IBD-binding motif (IBM), construct MLL1 111-160; phospho-acceptors S136 and S142
motif aLEDGF/p75 integrase-binding domain (IBD), approximately 347-435
fate in fusionretained
breakpoint reference residue1400
affinity effect2- to 10-fold increase in IBD binding on IBM phosphorylation (class-level statement)
kd statusNo KMT2A-specific Kd published, phosphorylated or unphosphorylated; the graph's interface-psip1-ibd-kmt2a records the same gap.
tested on fusionYes - colony-forming transformation assay with an MLL1 fusion carrying S136A/S142A and S136D/S142D
druggabilityCK2 has clinical-stage inhibitors (CX-4945/silmitasertib, TTP22); the IBD fold itself has published small-molecule chemistry from the HIV integrase field.
phospho sites
[
  {
    "protein": "KMT2A",
    "uniprot": "Q03164",
    "residue": "S136",
    "kinase": "CK2",
    "fate": "retained",
    "evidence": "UniProt ECO:0000269 from PMID 29997176"
  },
  {
    "protein": "KMT2A",
    "uniprot": "Q03164",
    "residue": "S142",
    "kinase": "CK2",
    "fate": "retained",
    "evidence": "UniProt ECO:0000269 from PMID 29997176; matches minimal CK2 consensus S-x-x-D via D145"
  }
]
structures
[
  "3U88",
  "2MSR"
]
menin mbm1 kd conditions
{
  "_why": "Added by king sweep 2026-09-21 (Q82 corrections-owed #3). This entry quotes the menin-MBM1 53 nM figure. That number is NOT comparable to the KMT2A CXXC-DNA affinities without stating its buffer, and the omission is how a 1,300-fold 'discrepancy' was manufactured.",
  "value": "53 nM",
  "motif": "KMT2A MBM1, residues 4-15, FITC-labelled peptide at 15 nM",
  "method": "fluorescence polarisation",
  "buffer": "50 mM Tris, pH 7.5, 50 mM NaCl, 1 mM DTT",
  "nacl_mM": 50,
  "companion_itc": "72 nM by ITC, 50 mM phosphate pH 7.5, 50 mM NaCl, 1 mM beta-mercaptoethanol, 27 C",
  "source_pmid": "20961854",
  "source_quote": "\"in the FP buffer (50 mM Tris, pH 7.5, 50 mM NaCl, 1 mM DTT) used for binding experiments (Kd measurements)\" -- Grembecka 2010 JBC, Methods, fetched and read from PMC3003368 on 2026-09-21",
  "do_not_compare_naively": {
    "against": "KMT2A CXXC-DNA Kd 44 uM (PMID 20010842, Cierpicki 2010)",
    "because": "that measurement was made at 300 mM NaCl -- verbatim from its Methods, \"50 mM phosphate buffer (pH 7.1), 300 mM NaCl, 2 mM DTT at 25 C\" (PMC2908503, read 2026-09-21) -- SIX-FOLD more salt, on a salt-sensitive protein-DNA contact, against a hydrophobic peptide pocket that is not.",
    "best_matched_pair": "44 uM at 300 mM NaCl vs the 5.7 uM tagless CXXC measurement at 150 mM NaCl gives 108-fold against menin, not ~1,000-fold",
    "see": "ana-the-menin-affinity-comparison-was-made-at-one-sixth-the-salt"
  },
  "added": "2026-09-21"
}
cxxc dna kd conditions
{
  "_why": "Added by king sweep 2026-09-21 (cycle 46). This entry quotes the KMT2A CXXC-DNA 44 uM. That number is a property of five choices, not of the molecule, and quoting it bare is how this graph manufactured a 1,300-fold 'discrepancy' with the menin contact.",
  "value": "44 uM",
  "construct": "isolated CXXC domain, KMT2A 1147-1203, untagged, 15N-labelled",
  "ligand": "DNA pal oligonucleotide, one CpG element",
  "method": "NMR titration",
  "buffer": "50 mM phosphate, pH 7.1, 300 mM NaCl, 2 mM DTT, 25 C",
  "nacl_mM": 300,
  "source_pmid": "20010842",
  "source_quote": "\"Determination of the dissociation constants by NMR for the CXXC domain (MLL 1147-1203) and mutants was performed by titration of 15N-labeled protein with concentrated solutions of DNA pal oligonucleotide. Experiments were carried out in 50 mM phosphate buffer (pH 7.1), 300 mM NaCl, 2 mM DTT at 25 C.\" -- Cierpicki 2010 NSMB, Methods, fetched and read from PMC2908503 on 2026-09-21. The result sentence reads \"The wild type protein yielded a Kd of 44 uM\".",
  "this_is_the_high_salt_end": "300 mM NaCl is roughly twice physiological ionic strength and SIX TIMES the 50 mM the menin-MBM1 53 nM was measured in. The same domain measured tagless at 150 mM NaCl gives 5.7 uM -- 7.7-fold tighter from salt alone.",
  "do_not_compare_naively": {
    "against": "menin-MBM1 53 nM (PMID 20961854), measured at 50 mM NaCl by FP",
    "best_matched_pair": "108-fold, not ~1,000-fold",
    "see": "ana-the-menin-affinity-comparison-was-made-at-one-sixth-the-salt"
  },
  "added": "2026-09-21"
}
How this could bite us back
  • CK2 inhibition does two things on this axis by different routes. It should weaken the fusion's LEDGF grip (this entry), and it also stabilises full-length wild-type MLL by blocking taspase1 cleavage, which displaces the chimera from chromatin. They happen to point the same therapeutic way, but a trial reading one as the other would misattribute its own result.
  • CK2 is a pleiotropic, near-ubiquitous kinase with hundreds of substrates; a therapeutic window argued from one substrate is not a window.
  • The IBD surface is used mutually exclusively by HIV-1 integrase, POGZ, JPO2 and MLL1. A molecule that frees the IBD does not free it for nothing - it frees it for the competitors, whose consequences in a leukaemic cell are unknown.
  • If the clamp is genuinely composite, an IBM-directed agent may be redundant with menin inhibition rather than additive, and would then add toxicity without adding effect.
Still open
  1. Does a CK2 inhibitor reduce LEDGF occupancy at KMT2A fusion target genes in a human t(4;11) line, measured by CUT&RUN, at a dose that does not yet stabilise wild-type MLL? The two CK2 effects on this axis run through different mechanisms and need separating.
  2. What is the dissociation constant of phospho-S136/S142 KMT2A 111-160 for the LEDGF IBD? Nobody has measured it for KMT2A in either state.
  3. Is the S136A/S142A transformation defect LEDGF-dependent? The colony result is consistent with the phospho-switch but was not, as far as we could read, shown to act through LEDGF binding.
  4. Do KMT2A-rearranged patient samples differ in S136/S142 occupancy, and does that track with menin-inhibitor response?
Every source behind this entry (3)
  1. E1strong confidence 4 of 5: Replicated in peer-reviewed work by more than one group.paper

    Structurally conserved IBD-binding motifs on LEDGF/p75 partners are regulated by phosphorylation, switching between low- and high-affinity states with a typical 2- to 10-fold affinity increase; eliminating the IBM phosphosites S136 and S142 on MLL1 significantly reduced the transformation capacity of MLL1 fusions in primary murine cells, and the phosphomimetic S136D/S142D substitutions almost fully rescued oncogenic activity.

    What this evidence cannot show

    Full text read 2026-09-19 through the PMC HTML page (PMC6065015); Europe PMC fullTextXML returned HTTP 500 and efetch db=pmc returned a body-less record for this article, so quotation is from the rendered page rather than from XML. The transformation readout is a colony-forming assay in murine stem cells carrying an MLL1 fusion, not a human leukaemia model, and no KMT2A-specific dissociation constant is reported. The 2- to 10-fold figure is stated across the IBM family, with the explicit 5- to 10-fold numbers given for ASK/HDGFL2 motifs rather than for MLL1.

    Evidence that argues against this (2)
    • An affinity switch of 2- to 10-fold is modest next to the menin-MBM1 arm of the same clamp, which is measured at 53 nM by fluorescence polarisation and 72 nM by calorimetry. A tenfold change on an unmeasured baseline could leave the interaction either far above or far below a druggable window, and the structural paper that defines this interface reports no dissociation constant at all. Cermáková K et al. 2014
    • The same crystal structure that establishes the LEDGF contact shows menin and LEDGF gripping adjacent stretches of one KMT2A chain as a composite clamp. If the arms are not separable in cells, disrupting the IBM may simply phenocopy disrupting menin rather than opening an independent axis. Huang J et al. 2012
  2. E2established confidence 5 of 5: Multiple independent lines of evidence; treated as settled in the field.database

    UniProtKB curates KMT2A S136 and S142 as 'Phosphoserine; by CK2' with experimental evidence (ECO:0000269) attributed to PMID 29997176, and annotates 25 phosphosites in total for the protein.

    What this evidence cannot show

    Fetched live 2026-09-19. A UniProt kinase attribution is a curator's reading of one paper, not an independent measurement, and the two annotations trace to the single study in E1. S136 does not match the minimal CK2 consensus S-x-x-D/E, so its assignment rests entirely on that paper's assays.

    Evidence that argues against this (1)
    • UniProt's phosphosite table for this protein is demonstrably low-sensitivity: it lists 25 sites where the PRIDE/PTMeXchange re-analysis served by the EBI Proteins API lists 130, and the two sets are not nested - UniProt carries T840 and T3372, which the proteomics set does not. A kinase attribution drawn from a table with that coverage is not a complete account of who phosphorylates this protein. EMBL-EBI 2026
  3. E3established confidence 5 of 5: Multiple independent lines of evidence; treated as settled in the field.paper

    In the menin-KMT2A-LEDGF ternary structure, menin binds KMT2A residues 103-153 and the LEDGF IBD binds an adjacent stretch of the same KMT2A chain, so the two contacts form a composite clamp rather than competing for one site.

    What this evidence cannot show

    Abstract and the graph's existing structural record read; the deposited entry is at 3.0 A, which limits confidence in side-chain detail at the periphery of the KMT2A peptide. The structure is of peptides, not of full-length KMT2A, and no phosphoserine is modelled, so it says nothing directly about the switch.

    Evidence that argues against this (1)
    • The same paper's headline is that this menin pocket binds JUND as well as MLL with opposite transcriptional consequences, which means occupancy of the pocket is not a clean proxy for MLL function and complicates reading the clamp as a simple two-armed drug target. Huang J et al. 2012
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