Flavopiridol inactivates P-TEFb and blocks most RNA polymerase II transcription in vivo

Flavopiridol (L86-8275, HMR1275) is a cyclin-dependent kinase (Cdk) inhibitor in clinical trials as a cancer therapy that has been recently shown to block human immunodeficiency virus Tat transactivation and viral replication through inhibition of positive transcription elongation factor b (P-TEFb). Flavopiridol is the most potent P-TEFb inhibitor reported and the first Cdk inhibitor that is not competitive with ATP. We examined the ability of flavopiridol to inhibit P-TEFb (Cdk9/cyclin T1) phosphorylation of both RNA polymerase II and the large subunit of the 5, 6-dichloro-1-beta -D-ribofuranosyl-benzimidazole (DRB) sensitivity-inducing factor and found that the IC50 determined was directly related to the concentration of the enzyme. We concluded that the flavonoid associates with P-TEFb with 1:1 stoichiometry even at concentrations of enzyme in the low nanomolar range. These results indicate that the apparent lack of competition with ATP could be caused by a very tight binding of the drug. We developed a novel immobilized P-TEFb assay and demonstrated that the drug remains bound for minutes even in the presence of high salt. Flavopiridol remained bound in the presence of a 1000-fold excess of the commonly used inhibitor DRB, suggesting that the immobilized P-TEFb could be used in a simple screening assay that would allow the discovery or characterization of compounds with binding properties similar to flavopiridol. Finally, we compared the ability of flavopiridol and DRB to inhibit transcription in vivo using nuclear run-on assays and concluded that P-TEFb is required for transcription of most RNA polymerase II molecules in vivo.