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.
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.
| partner a | gene-psip1 |
|---|---|
| partner b | gene-kmt2a |
| motif b | KMT2A IBD-binding motif (IBM), construct MLL1 111-160; phospho-acceptors S136 and S142 |
| motif a | LEDGF/p75 integrase-binding domain (IBD), approximately 347-435 |
| fate in fusion | retained |
| breakpoint reference residue | 1400 |
| affinity effect | 2- to 10-fold increase in IBD binding on IBM phosphorylation (class-level statement) |
| kd status | No KMT2A-specific Kd published, phosphorylated or unphosphorylated; the graph's interface-psip1-ibd-kmt2a records the same gap. |
| tested on fusion | Yes - colony-forming transformation assay with an MLL1 fusion carrying S136A/S142A and S136D/S142D |
| druggability | CK2 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"
}- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Do KMT2A-rearranged patient samples differ in S136/S142 occupancy, and does that track with menin-inhibitor response?
- 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.
Affinity switching of the LEDGF/p75 IBD interactome is governed by kinase-dependent phosphorylation. · Sharma S, et al. · Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2018What 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
- 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.
UniProtKB Q03164 (KMT2A_HUMAN), Modified residue feature table (ft_mod_res) · UniProt Consortium 2026What 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
- 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.
The same pocket in menin binds both MLL and JUND but has opposite effects on transcription. · Huang J, et al. · Nature 2012What 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
CK2 sites S136/S142 lie in the IBM1-IBM2 linker
a phospho-gated interface, but on WRAD rather than on the fragment the fusion keeps
LEDGF IBD binds the KMT2A IBM (111-160); phospho-gated at S136/S142
the IBD arm of the composite clamp
same interface; this entry adds the phospho-regulation the parent entry does not record
the other arm of the composite clamp; menin-pocket-independent
- regulates →KMT2A::MLLT1 (MLL-ENL), t(11;19)(q23;p13.3)
S136A/S142A reduces MLL1-fusion transformation capacity; phosphomimetic rescues
- ← regulatesCSNK2A1 (casein kinase 2 alpha) - the one kinase that turns up three separate times in KMT2A biology
the kinase that writes the IBM switch
the phosphatase arm that would set the lifetime of the CK2 marks
the contact the hypothesis is about
the headline found relation
the second, untested CK2 route the same drug would also hit
- depends on →CSNK2A1 (casein kinase 2 alpha) - the one kinase that turns up three separate times in KMT2A biology
CK2 writes S136/S142