title: Activity and substrate specificity of the murine STK2 Serine/Threonine kinase that is structurally related to the mitotic regulator protein NIMA of Aspergillus nidulans.
abstract: We isolated a murine STK2 (mSTK2) cDNA that is homologous to murine Nek1 serine/threonine kinase, a family member related to the cell cycle regulator kinase NIMA of Aspergillus nidulans. Structural comparison demonstrated that the kinase domain of mSTK2 is highly similar to NIMA/Nek family but the C-terminal region is not similar to any proteins except for human STK2 (hSTK2). Similarly to Nek1, mSTK2 is expressed ubiquitously among various organs and is upregulated in the testis. The expression and localization of mSTK2 are not associated with the cell cycle progression of mitogen-activated lymphocyte and DNA-transfected fibroblast. The substrate specificity of mSTK2 is similar to NIMA, but the phosphorylation is observed exclusively upon threonine residues rather than serine. The mSTK2 is shown to be a new member of the NIMA/Nek family with similar substrate specificity, which might participate in a different role from NIMA kinase involved in the cell cycle regulation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Immunology, Kumamoto University School of Medicine, 2-2-1, Honjo, Kumamoto, 860-0811, Japan.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hayashi
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Igarashi
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ogawa
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sakaguchi
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D001233:Aspergillus nidulans / Q000235:genetics; D001483:Base Sequence; D018797:Cell Cycle Proteins; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D018076:DNA, Complementary / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D008938:Mitosis; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D000072380:NIMA-Related Kinase 1; D000072379:NIMA-Related Kinases; D017346:Protein Serine-Threonine Kinases / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D011505:Protein-Tyrosine Kinases / Q000737:chemistry; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D013379:Substrate Specificity; D000099317:Hippo Kinases
chemical_list: D018797:Cell Cycle Proteins; D018076:DNA, Complementary; D000072380:NIMA-Related Kinase 1; D000072379:NIMA-Related Kinases; D017346:Protein Serine-Threonine Kinases; D011505:Protein-Tyrosine Kinases; C485733:SLK protein, human; D000099317:Hippo Kinases; C000606914:NEK1 protein, human; C442331:NIMA-related kinase 6; C000606920:Nek1 protein, mouse; C402650:SLK protein, mouse