The active site of the CAMP-dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit harbors a cluster of acidic residuesAsp 127, Glu 170, Glu 203, Glu 230, and Asp 241 -that are not conserved throughout the protein kinase family. Based on crystal structures of the catalytic subunit, these amino acids are removed from the site of phosphoryl transfer and are implicated in substrate recognition. Glu 230, the most buried of these acidic residues, was mutated to Ala (rC[E230A]) and Gln (rC[E230Q]) and overexpressed in Escherichia coli. In contrast to the mostly insoluble and destabilized rC[E230A], rC[E230Q] is largely soluble, purifies like wild-type enzyme, and displays wild-type-like thermal stability. The mutation in rC[E230Q] causes an order of magnitude decrease in the affinity for a heptapeptide substrate, Kemptide. In addition, two independent kinetic techniques were used to dissect phosphoryl transfer and product release steps in the reaction pathway. Viscosometric and pre-steady-state quench-flow analyses revealed that the phosphoryl transfer rate constant decreases by an order of magnitude, whereas the product release rate constant remains unperturbed. Electrostatic alterations in the rC[E230Q] active site were assessed using modeling techniques that provide molecular interpretations for the substrate affinity and phosphoryl transfer rate decreases observed experimentally. These observations indicate that subsite recognition elements in the catalytic subunit make electrostatic contributions that are important not only for peptide affinity, but also for catalysis. Protein kinases may, therefore, discriminate substrates by not only binding them tightly, but also by only turning over ones that complement the electrostatic character of the active site.Keywords: CAMP-dependent protein kinase; catalytic subunit; electrostatic interaction; pre-steady-state kinetics; substrate specificityThe catalytic subunit of CAMP-dependent protein kinase is the simplest member of the protein kinase family because it is one of the smallest and its activity is regulated by a separate subunit (R-subunit). The holoenzyme form of the enzyme is an inactive complex composed of an R-subunit homodimer and two C-subunits (Taylor et al., 1989). Active monomeric C-subunits are released after CAMP binds with high affinity to the regulatory subunits (Gill & Garren, 1969) and phosphorylate a broad range of protein substrates involved in metabolic (Krebs, 1985), transcriptional (Yamamoto et al., 1988), and signal transduction events (Cook & McCormick, 1993). Active C-subunit phosphor- ylates protein substrates on Ser and Thr residing in a common consensus sequence, Arg-Arg-X-Ser/Thr-Y, where X denotes any amino acid and Y is a hydrophobic residue (Zetterqvist et al., 1990). The P -3 and P -2 arginines3 confer 4-6 kcal/ mol of binding energy (Walsh et al., 1990) to a 20-amino acid C-subunit inhibitor (IP20). C-subunit amino acids that complement these arginines were first visualized in a crystal structure of the C-subunit complexed with IP20 (Knigh...