The liberated catalytic subunits can then catalyze the transfer of ATP terminal phosphates to protein substrates at serine, or threonine residues. This phosphorylation usually results in a change in activity of the substrate. Since PKAs are present in a variety of cells and act on different substrates, PKA regulation and cAMP regulation are involved in many different pathways.
The mechanisms of further effects may be divided into direct protein phosphorylation and protein synthesis:
*In direct protein phosphorylation, PKA directly either increases or decreases the activity of a protein.
*In protein synthesis, PKA first directly activates CREB, which binds the cAMP response element (CRE), altering the transcription and therefore the synthesis of the protein. In general, this mechanism takes more time (hours to days).