Protein kinase CK2 (formerly casein kinase II or 2) is known to play a critical role in the control of cell growth and cell death and is thus intimately involved in the development of cancer. More specifically, CK2 has been found to be elevated in all cancers examined. While CK2 levels are known to be high in proliferating normal cells, CK2 has also been found to be a potent suppressor of apoptosis and is a link to the cancer cell phenotype, which is characterized by deregulation of both cell proliferation and cell death. Indeed, it would appear that CK2 impacts many of the hallmarks of cancer and it has now gained considerable attention as a potential target for cancer therapy. Protein Kinase CK2 and Cellular Function in Normal and Disease States increases knowledge of the role of CK2 in the development of cellular dysfunction and emphasizes that this protein may serve as a target of drug development for improved cancer therapy. In addition, it is a handy tool that provides cancer researchers, graduate students, and all scientists involved in CK2 research with one main source for the latest advances in CK2 research. ?
1. CK2 Suppression of Apoptosis.-
2. Structural Determinants of CK2
Regulation.-
3. Targeting Protein Kinase: CK2 Suppresses Pro-Survival
Signaling Pathways and Growth of Gliobastoma.-
4. The Roles of CK2 in
Drosophila Neurogenesis.-
5. Targeting the CK2 Subunit Interface: Challenge
and Usefulness.-
6. CK2 in Wnt/-catenin signaling and embryo development.-
7. Defective expression of CK2 promotes EMT and stemness properties both
required for breast cancer progression.-
8. Chemical Biology Approaches to
Identify CK2 Substrates and Perform Unbiased Evaluation of CK2 Inhibitors.-
9. Development of Screening Systems and Identification of Novel Potent
Inhibitors of Human Protein Kinase CK2.-
10. Protein Kinase CK2: At the
Crossroad of Regulatory Cellular Pathways.-
11. Functional Regulation of DYRK
Family Protein Kinases by Cellular Binding Partners.-
12. Regulation of CK2
in pancreatic cells.-
13. Recent impressions from the configurational and
conformational space captured by protein kinase CK2.-
14. Role of CK2 in
Plant Responses to Abiotic Stress.-
15. Genuine Casein Kinase: The False
Sister of CK2: Phosphorylates-Secreted Proteins.-
16. CK2: A Novel Player
in L-DOPA induced dyskinesia in a mouse model of Parkinsons disease.-
17.
CK2 function in the regulation of Akt Pathway: new findings and
perspectives.-
18. CK2 structure from yeast to human.-
19. Cellular zinc
signaling is triggered by CK2.-
20. A Nanomedicine Approach to Targeting CK2
for Cancer therapy.-
21. Bisubstrate approach for construction of
high-affinity inhibitors and optical probes for protein kinase CK2.
Dr. Khalil Ahmed is a Professor at the University of Minnesota, and a Senior Research Career Scientist at Minneapolis VA Health Care System, Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. He has a long history of studies on the functional biology of protein kinase CK2 in normal and neoplastic cells. He originally described the signal mediated dynamic shuttling of CK2 in the cell, and discovered the role of CK2 as a suppressor of apoptosis. His current research is focused on the mechanism of CK2 regulation of cell death. He is also studying the development of molecular therapeutic strategies using a nanomedicine approach for treatment of prostate and other cancers.
Dr. Olaf-Georg Issinger is a Professor at the University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark. He has been involved in the initial cloning and characterization of protein kinase CK2, a prerequisite for the elucidation of its structure in the absence and presence of specific interaction molecules. His current research focuses on the exploration of cellular signaling pathways in cell lines with respect to the role of various protein kinases using newly characterized kinase inhibitors identified by screening small chemical compound libraries.
Dr. Ryszard Szyszka is a Professor at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland. He is head of the Department of Molecular Biology and Dean of the Faculty of Biotechnology and Environmental Sciences. His research is focused on the identification and characterization of new substrates of protein kinase CK2 from Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Further areas of interest include the structure and regulation of yeast CK2, and discovery of novel CK2 inhibitors.
