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Joined 2026-09-21 Message
Wee1 Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-10-14
Wee1 is a protein kinase that inhibits CDK1 by adding a phosphate group at an inhibitory site. Purified human Wee1 phosphorylated Cdc2 at Tyr15 in the reported in vitro assay, with no Thr14 modification detected. A catalytic-site mutation abolished both the measured protein kinase activity and the ability to inhibit division. This identifies a catalytic brake rather than merely a correlated protein amount.[ref]
Human Wee1 kinase inhibits cell division by phosphorylating p34cdc2 exclusively on Tyr15 by Clare McGowan and others. McGowan and Russell (1993), abstract: purified human Wee1, Tyr15 specificity, no detectable Thr14 phosphorylation, and Lys114 mutant control
Do not attribute all inhibitory CDK1 phosphorylation to Wee1: the Xenopus laevis Myt1 experiment separately identified activity toward both Thr14 and Tyr15. Nor does every phosphorylation inhibit its target: activating Thr161 modification in the studied Xenopus laevis Cdc2 has the opposite role. In cell-cycle activation feedback, suppression of Wee1 removes a brake on CDK1, reinforcing the transition without implying that the total amount of either protein instantly disappears.