Protein kinases associated with isolated mitotic spindles from mammalian cells: identification of a casein kinase II-like enzyme.

Mitotic spindles isolated from prometaphase-arrested mammalian cells contain associated protein kinases that are extracted by high salt treatment. Their fractionation by ion-exchange chromatography reveals three major peaks of protein kinase activity that phosphorylate brain microtubule-associated proteins and differ in their substrate specificity. One of them has been identified as a casein kinaseII-like enzyme. A mitotic spindle-associated 325 kDa protein related to brain MAP1B is a major substrate for this casein kinase II-like enzyme. Another mitotic spindle protein kinase has been tentatively identified as a proline-directed protein kinase.