Evidence that Nek1 does not phosphorylate Rad54-S572 during recovery from IR

A main focus of the work in our lab is on the activity of Tousled Like Kinase 1 (TLK1) in the area of DNA Damage and Repair. As one of its key interactor, TLK1 phosphorylates NIMA related kinase 1 (Nek1), and Nek1 was reported by Spies et al. to phosphorylate and regulate the activity of the key HRR protein Rad541, which suggested an intriguing signal transduction pathway: TLK1>Nek1>Rad54. In an effort to confirm such relations, we now report that we have not been able to reproduce key findings from that study. Specifically, we found that Nek1 does not phosphorylate RAD54-S572 as was reported. We generated Nek1-KO mouse NT1 cells2 and Nek1-Knock-down in Hek293 (same cells as in Spies et al.), and the pRAD54-S572 signal does not change with our custom Ab, with or w/o IR. When we used an Ab from the Lobrich lab, it detected an immunoreactive band of wrong size for RAD54, which also did not change after IR even in synchronized G2 cells, contrary to their report. We also note that their P-assignment was based on guessing a weak consensus Nek1 sequence, and that site-directed mutagenesis of RAD54-S572 failed to yield biological effects in their in in vitro studies1. To conclusively establish that S572 is not a site of phosphorylation of Nek1, we carried out a IVK with purified Nek1 and RAD54 followed by MS analysis of the phosphatides, which revealed several but not S572. We also could not reproduce their copurification of Nek1-RAD54 by coIP, calling into question this interaction. Neither we could reproduce their results demonstrating the importance of Nek1 for HRR using the same SceI-mediated DR-GFP conversion assays.