The hexapeptide (Arg),-Pro-Thr-Pro-Ala (T 1) and octapeptide (Arg),-Pro-Thr-Pro-Ala (T5), reproducing the phosphorylatable site of protein phosphatase inhibitor-I , a physiological target of CAMP-dependent protein kinase, and five related peptides were synthesized by the method in solution.The phosphorylation rates of such peptides by CAMP-dependent protein kinase and their kinetic parameters have been determined and compared with those of the hexapeptide (Arg),-Ah-Ser-Val-Ah, reproducing the phosphorylatable site of rat liver pyruvate kinase. The results obtained show that both the presence of threonine instead of serine and the adjacent C-terminal proline represent highly unfavourable factors seriously impairing the protein kinase reaction by both increasing K,, and depressing V. On the other hand the N-terminal proline is compatible with high phosphorylation rates and the row of four rather than two consecutive arginines improves the phosphorylation efficiency by lowering tenfold the K,,, without affecting the V. The extension of the hexapeptide T 1 on its C-terminal side to give the derivative (Arg),-Pro-Thr-Pro-Ala-Thr-Val-AIa has no significant effect on the kinetic parameters.Moreover no relationship between the phosphorylation efficiency and the predicted secondary structures around the target residue could be evidenced.Therefore the local structural features of the phosphorylatable site of inhibitor-I cannot fully account for the fast phosphorylation of this regulatory protein. Other factors must optimize the protein kinase reaction.CAMP-dependent protein kinase is a multi-substrate enzyme capable of modulating the biological activity of a variety of proteins by catalyzing the phosphorylation of specific amino acid residues (for a review see [I]). In most instances the phosphorylated residues arc serines. However in the case of protein phosphatase inhibitor-I a threonyl residue is modified by CAMP-dependent protein kinase [2].The factors influencing the phosphorylation of seryl residues by CAMP-dependent protein kinase have been thoroughly studied with the aid of synthetic peptides which corrcspond to the amino acid sequences around the phosphorylation sites in protein substrates [3 -61. All these reports agree on the requirement ofa pair of adjacent basic amino acid residues either Arg-Arg or Arg-Lys close to the N-terminal side ofthe phosphorylated serine. On the other hand the length of the peptide, beyond 6-7 residues, is not so important; actually small peptides are often better substrates than the intact proteins, indicating that the integrity of the protein substrate is by no means required for phosphorylation [l].A structural modification which dramatically impairs the phosphorylation efficiency of these peptides is the replacement of threonine for serine, giving derivatives with both higher K,,, and lower Vvalues [3,4,6] per se. The sequence surrounding Thr-35 is unusual for two more reasons: the threonine is flanked by two prolyl residues and there are four rather than two arginines [2].In ord...