In aged human brain and particularly in Alzheimer's disease brain, paired helical filaments (PHFs) accumulate in the neuronal cell. Recently, it has been found that the highly phosphorylated tau protein, one of the microtubule-associated proteins (MAPs), is a component of PHF. The authors attempted to clarify the mechanism underlying the accumulation of PHF from the following two aspects; 1) What is the mechanism of phosphorylation of tau protein? 2) Is the highly phosphorylated tau protein capable of forming PHFs? From rat or bovine microtubule proteins we partially purified and characterized a novel protein kinase that specifically phosphorylated tau and MAP2 among many proteins in the brain extract, and which formed a PHF epitope on the phosphorylated human tau. This enzyme was one of the protein serine/threonine kinases and was independent of known second messengers. The phosphorylation of tau by this enzyme was stimulated by tubulin under the condition of microtubule formation, suggesting that the phosphorylation of tau could occur concomitantly with microtubule formation in the brain. Since this kinase was usually bound to tau but not directly to tubulin, the enzyme was associated with microtubules through tau. From these properties related to tau, this kinase is designated as tau protein kinase. The tau that been phosphorylated with this kinase using [gamma-32P]ATP as a phosphate donor, was digested by endoprotinase Lys-C to produce three labeled fragments, K1, K2 and K3. These three fragments were sequenced and the phosphorylation sites on tau by this kinase were identified. The K2 fragment overlapped with the tau-1 site known to be one of the phosphorylation site in PHF. This result strengthens the possibility that tau protein phosphorylated by tau protein kinase is incorporated into PHF. Tubulin binding sites on tau were located between K1 and K3 fragments, while K2 fragment was located in the neighboring to N-terminus of K1. No phosphorylated sites were found on the tubulin-binding domain of tau, leading us to the idea that the interaction of tau with tubulin could induce conformational changes on tau making it accessible to effects of the kinase. We detected -SP- as a sequence common to three major phosphorylation sites on K1, K2 and K3 fragments. Neurofilament-specific kinase and growth-associated histone H1 kinase are known to recognize the consensus sequence including -SP-. These enzymes exhibit certain properties similar to tau protein kinase and seem to play a crucial role in the regulation of neurite outgrowth or cell growth, through the phosphorylation of a specific substrate, neurofilaments or histone H1, respectively.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)