CDK9 and mTOR: Trading places

Abstract

In this issue of Blood, Beauchamp et al1 reveal that the kinase CDK9, typically associated with transcriptional elongation,2 directly modulates translation through coopting components of the major translational regulatory complex mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR).3,4 These studies represent a major shift from the current paradigm; specifically, this work demonstrates that other kinases can coopt mTOR cofactors in order to modulate not only translation but also transcription as well as positioning CDK9 as an RNA processing cofactor.