Developmental phosphoproteomics identifies the kinase CK2 as a driver of Hedgehog signaling and a therapeutic target in medulloblastoma.

Developmental phosphoproteomics identifies the kinase CK2 as a driver of Hedgehog signaling and a therapeutic target in medulloblastoma. Sci Signal. 2018 Sep 11;11(547): Authors: Purzner T, Purzner J, Buckstaff T, Cozza G, Gholamin S, Rusert JM, Hartl TA, Sanders J, Conley N, Ge X, Langan M, Ramaswamy V, Ellis L, Litzenburger U, Bolin S, Theruvath J, Nitta R, Qi L, Li XN, Li G, Taylor MD, Wechsler-Reya RJ, Pinna LA, Cho YJ, Fuller MT, Elias JE, Scott MP Abstract A major limitation of targeted cancer therapy is the rapid emergence of drug resistance, which often arises through mutations at or downstream of the drug target or through intrinsic resistance of subpopulations of tumor cells. Medulloblastoma (MB), the most common pediatric brain tumor, is no exception, and MBs that are driven by sonic hedgehog (SHH) signaling are particularly aggressive and drug-resistant. To find new drug targets and therapeutics for MB that may be less susceptible to common resistance mechanisms, we used a developmental phosphoproteomics approach in murine granule neuron precursors (GNPs), the developmental cell of origin of MB. The protein kinase CK2 emerged as a driver of hundreds of phosphorylation events during the proliferative, MB-like stage of GNP growth, including the phosphorylation of three of the eight proteins commonly amplified in MB. CK2 was critical to the stabilization and activity of the transcription factor GLI2, a late downstream effect...
Source: Science Signaling - Category: Biomedical Science Authors: Tags: Sci Signal Source Type: research