Three cDNA clones encoding isoforms of casein kinase I (CKI) were isolated from Arabidopsis fhaliana. One full-length clone, designated CKI7, contained an open reading frame of 1371 bp encoding a protein of 51,949 D with an isoelectric point of 9.7. In addition to the highly conserved catalytic domain (of about 300 amino acids), the Arabidopsis CKI isoforms contain 150 to 180 amino acid carboxyl-terminal extensions, which show among themselves a lower leve1 of sequence conservation. These extensions do not show any sequence similarity to nonplant CKI isoforms, such as rat testis CK16, which is their closest isolated homolog, or to yeast CKI isoforms. Three additional isoforms of Arabidopsis CKI were found in the data bases of expressed sequence tags and/or were isolated serendipitously in nonspecific screening procedures by others. One of them also shows a carboxyl-terminal extension, but of only 80 amino acids. Casein kinase activity was detected in the soluble fraction of Escherichia coli strains expressing the CKll protein. This activity showed the crucial properties of CKI, including the ability to phosphorylate the D4 peptide, a specific substrate of CKI, and inhibition by K(2-aminoethyl)-5-chloroisoquinoline-8-sulfonamide, a specific CKI inhibitor. Like severa1 recombinant CKI isoforms from yeast, CKll was able to phosphorylate tyrosinecontaining acidic polymers.