Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Nov 17;11(22):3639.
doi: 10.3390/cells11223639.

Minor Kinases with Major Roles in Cytokinesis Regulation

Stefano Sechi  1 , Roberto Piergentili  1 , Maria Grazia Giansanti  1
Affiliations
Review

Minor Kinases with Major Roles in Cytokinesis Regulation

Stefano Sechi et al. Cells. .

Abstract

Cytokinesis, the conclusive act of cell division, allows cytoplasmic organelles and chromosomes to be faithfully partitioned between two daughter cells. In animal organisms, its accurate regulation is a fundamental task for normal development and for preventing aneuploidy. Cytokinesis failures produce genetically unstable tetraploid cells and ultimately result in chromosome instability, a hallmark of cancer cells. In animal cells, the assembly and constriction of an actomyosin ring drive cleavage furrow ingression, resulting in the formation of a cytoplasmic intercellular bridge, which is severed during abscission, the final event of cytokinesis. Kinase-mediated phosphorylation is a crucial process to orchestrate the spatio-temporal regulation of the different stages of cytokinesis. Several kinases have been described in the literature, such as cyclin-dependent kinase, polo-like kinase 1, and Aurora B, regulating both furrow ingression and/or abscission. However, others exist, with well-established roles in cell-cycle progression but whose specific role in cytokinesis has been poorly investigated, leading to considering these kinases as "minor" actors in this process. Yet, they deserve additional attention, as they might disclose unexpected routes of cell division regulation. Here, we summarize the role of multifunctional kinases in cytokinesis with a special focus on those with a still scarcely defined function during cell cleavage. Moreover, we discuss their implication in cancer.

Keywords: P21-activated kinases (PAK); cancer; casein kinase 2 (CK2); checkpoint kinase 2 (Chk2); cytokinesis.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic illustrating the different stages of cytokinesis in dividing animal cells and the proteins that take part in this process. Microtubules are depicted in black, centrioles in green, the contractile ring and the midbody ring in red, anaphase chromosomes and telophase nuclei in grey, Golgi organelles and Golgi-derived vesicles in blue, cortex in yellow. ECT2, epithelial cell-transforming sequence 2 oncogene; CPC, chromosomal passenger complex; RhoA, ras homolog family member A; Plk1, polo-like kinase 1; NM II, non-muscle myosin II; Cit-K, citron kinase; ESCRT-III, endosomal sorting complexes required for transport-III; Cep55, centrosomal protein 55; Alix, ALG-2-interacting protein X; TSG101, tumor susceptibility gene 101 protein.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Schematic diagrams illustrating the protein structures of human CK2, PAK, and Chk2 proteins. (A) CK2 tetramer complex; (B,C) protein domains of PAK1 (B) and Chk2 proteins (C).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. D’Avino P.P., Giansanti M.G., Petronczki M. Cytokinesis in animal cells. Cold Spring Harb. Perspect. Biol. 2015;7:a015834. doi: 10.1101/cshperspect.a015834. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Pollard T.D., O’Shaughnessy B. Molecular Mechanism of Cytokinesis. Annu. Rev. Biochem. 2020;88:661–689. doi: 10.1146/annurev-biochem-062917-012530. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bhavsar-Jog Y.P., Bi E. Mechanics and regulation of cytokinesis in budding yeast. Semin. Cell Dev. Biol. 2017;66:107–118. doi: 10.1016/j.semcdb.2016.12.010. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wangsa D., Quintanilla I., Torabi K., Vila-Casadesús M., Ercilla A., Klus G., Yuce Z., Galofré C., Cuatrecasas M., Lozano J.J., et al. Near-tetraploid cancer cells show chromosome instability triggered by replication stress and exhibit enhanced invasiveness. FASEB J. 2018;32:3502–3517. doi: 10.1096/fj.201700247RR. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bach D.H., Zhang W., Sood A.K. Chromosomal Instability in Tumor Initiation and Development. Cancer Res. 2019;79:3995–4002. doi: 10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-18-3235. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

Grants and funding

This work was supported by a grant from Fondazione Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro (AIRC, IG 2017 n° 20779) to M.G.G.

LinkOut - more resources