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Polo-like kinase (Plk1) Polo-like kinase (Plk1), is a serine/threonine kinase that is active during mitosis (Hamanaka et al., 1995). Its name is derived from its original characterisation as a homolog of a Drosophila mitotic kinase encoded by the Polo gene (Fenton et al., 1993; Martin et al., 2006). There are five Plk kinases identified in humans, although only Plk1 has been extensively characterised as a mitotic kinase (Martin et al., 2006; Lens et al., 2010). Polo-like Kinase family members Other members of the family have largely non-mitotic functions: Plk2 and Plk4 are involved in centriole duplication (Warnke et al., 2004; …

Protein kinase B or AKT (PKB) is a serine/threonine kinase. In mammals it is comprised of 3 highly homologous isoforms PKBα (Akt1), PKBβ (Akt2), and PKBγ (Akt3) (Manning and Cantley 2007). AKT signalling is activated in response to a variety of hormones, growth factors and extracellular matrix (ECM) components. The serine/threonine kinase AKT is involved in the regulation of a number of cellular processes including cell growth, proliferation, metabolism and cell survival. AKT Signalling Activation AKTs are activated by receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs). RTKs activate phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3K) through tyrosine phosphorylation of adaptor proteins …

Interferons (IFNs) are a group of signalling proteins that are produced and released from cells in response to viral infection and other stimuli such as normal and tumour cell survival and death. IFNs interact with specific cellular receptors, thereby promoting production of secondary messengers which leads to the expression of antiviral and immune modulatory genes. There are three groups of IFNs, Type I IFNs, Type II IFNs and Type III IFNs. Type I IFNs include IFN-alpha, -beta, -omega, -kappa and IFN-zeta. These are essential for regulating the immune response to viral infections. The Type II IFN group only includes IFN-gamma. IFN-gamma is a versatile cytokine that plays an essen …

LATS kinases belong to a family of proteins that, in mammals, are comprised of two isoforms, LATS1 and LATS2. Originally identified in Drosophila melanogaster as Warts kinase, LATS1 and LATS2 serine/threonine kinases have been shown to be tumour suppressors (Edwards and Munger 2004). The original homologue of LATS was described as the dlats/warts tumour suppressor in two independent screens in Drosophila (Justice et al. 1995, Xu et al. 1995). Dlats and warts encoded the same gene so in this thesis the original homologue of LATS is warts (wts). Homozygous loss of the warts gene in Drosophila formed greatly overgrown somatic cells which lead to the hypothesis that warts is a tumour suppr …

How to increase lab productivityWhen you look back at some weeks in the lab it seems like you have achieved nothing and your lab productivity can be low. Your cloning hasn’t worked or your mice just won’t mate. Or sometimes you are just allergic to working in the lab, and before you know it another year has gone by, your funding is running out and you are wondering where you are going to find to the time to finish those critical papers that will make your grant application. Here are 10 simple steps to increase lab productivity.Start working early:Although I am not expert and was terrible at working in the lab, I would mostly start work at 10, take coffee at 10 30 and decide to really s …

MST2/Hippo PathwayMammalian Sterile Twenty (MST) pathways have been identified as a homologue of the ste20 kinase from Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Creasy and Chernoff 1995). The MST2/Hippo pathway has been identified as a master regulator of cell proliferation, cell death and cell differentiation (Yu and Guan 2013).The Hippo Pathway in drosophilaIn Drosophila, the Hippo pathway was first discovered with the identification of Fat and expanded proteins which were shown to regulate cell proliferation (Boedigheimer and Laughon 1993, Mahoney et al. 1991). The Hippo pathway in Drosophila is composed of a number of core proteins which have homologues in mammalian cells. The Hippo pathway was ma …

Cancer DevelopmentCancer is a group of diseases that involves abnormal cell growth resulting in malignant tumours/ malignant neoplasms. Cancer is a leading cause of morbidity, with 14 million new cases diagnosed and 8.2 million people dying from cancer in 2012 (World Health Organisation 2015). The different types of cancers are classified by the cell type they originate from. The most common cancers are breast, colorectum, lung, cervix, and stomach cancer. There are a number of risk factors that lead to cancer development such as smoking tobacco, an unbalanced diet, being overweight, alcohol use and lack of physical activity (World Health Organisation 2015) Cancer development results i …

A wide variety of cell surface receptors activate Ras GTPase, including the tyrosine receptor linked to the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) (Wells 1999). Upon receptor stimulation, son of sevenless (SOS) stimulates Ras to change from GDP to GTP resulting in Ras activation (Geyer and Wittinghofer 1997).Ras GTPaseRas GTPase shuttles between inactive GDP-bound and active GTP-bound conformation (Colicelli 2004). The best characterised isoforms of Ras GTPase are K-Ras, H-Ras and N-Ras, which are demonstrated to be mutated in 30% of human tumours (Repasky et al. 2004). Activated Ras phosphorylates and activates the Ser/Thr kinase Raf. The three isoforms of Raf are B-Raf, Raf-1 and A- …

Unregulated cell growthCancer, although heterogeneous by its very nature, can be broadly defined as a set of diseases characterised by unregulated cell growth leading to invasion of surrounding tissues and spread (metastasis) to other parts of the body (King et al., 2006). Inhibiting cell division therefore represents a key therapeutic target for cancer.Characteristics of cancer cellsIn their seminal review, Hanahan and Weinberg identified 6 key characteristics of cancer cells, namely: autostimulation; angiogenesis; metastasis; insensitivity to antiproliferative signals; resistance to apoptosis; and limitless replicative potential (Hanahan et al., 2000). This list was recently expande …

Delighted to be featured on Sophie Arthur’s blog, Soph Talks Science, where she interviews PhDs about their lives as researchers. Some great pieces on the site that are linkedin with the Instagram profiles of the researchers, you can find the interview here:Scientist in the Spotlight. Sean M. window.SHOGUN_IMAGE_ELEMENTS = window.SHOGUN_IMAGE_ELEMENTS || new Array(); window.SHOGUN_IMAGE_ELEMENTS.push({ hoverImage: '', uuid: 's-206680cc-50fa-4256-b642-544a4df23a30' }) { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Article", "title": "Scientist in the spotlight", "description": "Explore the life of Sean Mac Fhearraigh as he shares his experien …

IntroductionThe human kinome is estimated to contain 518 genes, in comparison to the estimated 180 genes that comprise the phosphatome (Arena et al., 2005). These kinase genes represent a significant fraction of all eukaryotic genes, highlighting the prominent role of these enzymes in controlling key cellular functions (Manning et al., 2002). The first oncogene to be identified and characterised, Src, was found to be a tyrosine kinase (Collett et al., 1980; Czernilofsky et al., 1980). The isolation of this tyrosine kinase in 1980 came 7 years before the first tyrosine phosphatase, PTP1B, which was identified in 1987 and purified in 1988 (Lim Tung et al., 1987; Tonks et al., 1988). Inve …

SARS-CoV-2 qPCR assay from Assay Genie Assay Genie have just launched a qPCR assay for the detection of SARS-CoV-2. The SARS-CoV-2 One-Step RT-qPCR Kit for Coronavirus Detection (Strain 2019-nCoV) can detect SARS-CoV-2 in a range of sample types including sputum; nasopharyngeal, oropharyngeal aspirates, washes or swabs; tracheal aspirates by qPCR. What is in the kit? The assay genie SARS-CoV-2 qPCR assay kit comes with enough reagents to run 100 reactions. This kit also comes in 5, 10 and 500 pack sizes. Each kit comes with the following reagents for SARS-CoV-2 detection. …

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most frequently occurring cancers and there are 630,000 new cases diagnosed every year worldwide (De Minicis et al. 2013). HCC develops frequently from chronic hepatitis or cirrhosis of the liver (Thorgeirsson and Grisham 2002). These conditions result in hepatocyte destruction and promotion of immune cell invasion of the liver tissue, which in turn results in changes of the matrix and micro-environment of the liver (Bosch et al. 1999). Hepatitis B virus About 80% of HCC develops from hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV) and aflatoxin B1 (AFB) (Bosch et al. 1999). The development of HCC can take nea …