NOMENCLATURE OF GENES INVOLVED IN CELL PROLIFERATION (PART III)

1. MELK, PK 38
---------Thanks to Jean-Pierre Tassan who published this:
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Note	MELK (Maternal Embryonic Leucine zipper Kinase) belongs to the CAMK serine/threonine protein kinase superfamily. Melk is a protein serine/threonine kinase that is maximally active during mitosis. It is involved in diverse functions such as cell cycle, cytokinesis, mRNA splicing and apoptosis.
Description	The full-length protein is 651 amino acids with an estimated molecular weight of approximately 74,5 kDa.
Expression	MELK is expressed in cells of various tissue origins. MELK is highly expressed in oocytes, spermatogonia and embryos, which is indicative of a role in the germ-cell development. MELK is highly expressed in a large panel of cancers MELK expression is dependant on cell transformation (Gray et al., 2005). Its expression is strongly dependant on cell-cycle: MELK is undetectable in cells which have exited cell cycle (Badouel et al., 2010).
Localisation	Cytoplasm, nucleus and cell cortex.
Function	The exact function of MELK is currently unknown, however MELK was shown to be involved in cell cycle progression via the protein phosphatase CDC25B phosphorylation (Blot et al., 2002), in cytokinesis (Le Page et al., 2011), in apoptosis via its interaction with the Bcl-2 family of proapoptotic genes (Lin et al., 2007) and apoptosis signal-regulating kinase (ASK1) (Jung et al., 2008) and in inhibition of mRNA splicing during mitosis via its association with NIPP1 (Vulsteke et al., 2004). MELK function is required for mammary tumorigenesis in vivo (Hebbard et al., 2010).
Homology	MELK belongs to the Kin1/PAR-1/MARK family of protein kinases found from yeast to human. These kinases are involved in cell polarity, dynamics of microtubules and intracellular signalisation. ================================== This kinase is the real deal, Choi S suggested it may confer resistance to 5_FU and Radiation in colorectal cancer.  It is located at 9p13 In Breast Cancer, it is bad news (prognosis) because it blocks Apoptosis through Bcl-GL  (Fau is an associate). =========================================================== 2. CM2 or Minichromosomal  Maintenance Complex, location 3q21 regulated by CDC2 and 7  of which we spoke about as needed for cell division this one initiate genome replication, marking proliferation