title: The New Role for an Old Kinase: Protein Kinase CK2 Regulates Metal Ion Transport.
abstract: The pleiotropic serine/threonine protein kinase CK2 was the first kinase discovered. It is renowned for its role in cell proliferation and anti-apoptosis. The complexity of this kinase is well reflected by the findings of past decades in terms of its heterotetrameric structure, subcellular location, constitutive activity and the extensive catalogue of substrates. With the advent of non-biased high-throughput functional genomics such as genome-wide deletion mutant screening, novel aspects of CK2 functionality have been revealed. Our recent discoveries using the model organismSaccharomyces cerevisiaeand mammalian cells demonstrate that CK2 regulates metal toxicity. Extensive literature search reveals that there are few but elegant works on the role of CK2 in regulating the sodium and zinc channels. As both CK2 and metal ions are key players in cell biology and oncogenesis, understanding the details of CK2's regulation of metal ion homeostasis has a direct bearing on cancer research. In this review, we aim to garner the recent data and gain insights into the role of CK2 in metal ion transport.
authors.affiliation: School of Science and Health, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith NSW 2751, Australia. a.johnson@westernsydney.edu.au.
authors.forename: Adam J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.affiliation: School of Science and Health, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith NSW 2751, Australia. m.wu@westernsydney.edu.au.|Molecular Medicine Research Group, School of Medicine, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith NSW 2751, Australia. m.wu@westernsydney.edu.au.
authors.forename: Ming J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Wu
keywords: genome-wide screen; metal ion transport; metal toxicity; protein kinase CK2; therapeutic targets; zinc channels