Maternal Embryonic Leucine Zipper Kinase is Associated with Metastasis in Triple-negative Breast Cancer

Authors

Xuemei Xie
Gaurav B Chauhan
Ramakrishna Edupuganti
Takahiro Kogawa
Jihyun Park
Moises Tacam
Alex W Tan
Mohd Mughees
Fnu Vidhu
Diane D Liu
Juliana M Taliaferro
Mary Kathryn Pitner
Luke S Browning
Ju-Hyeon Lee
Yu Shen
Jian Wang
Naoto T Ueno
Savitri Krishnamurthy
Gabriel N Hortobagyi
Debu Tripathy
Steven J Van Laere
Geoffrey Bartholomeusz
Kevin N Dalby
Chandra Bartholomeusz

Publication Date

6-1-2023

Journal

Cancer Research Communications

Abstract

UNLABELLED: Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) has high relapse and metastasis rates and a high proportion of cancer stem-like cells (CSC), which possess self-renewal and tumor initiation capacity. MELK (maternal embryonic leucine zipper kinase), a protein kinase of the Snf1/AMPK kinase family, is known to promote CSC maintenance and malignant transformation. However, the role of MELK in TNBC metastasis is unknown; we sought to address this in the current study. We found that

SIGNIFICANCE: These findings indicate that MELK is a driver of aggressiveness and metastasis in TNBC.

Keywords

Humans, Animals, Mice, Triple Negative Breast Neoplasms, Mice, Nude, Leucine Zippers, Cell Proliferation, Neoplasm Recurrence, Local, Protein Serine-Threonine Kinases

Comments

This article has been corrected. See Cancer Res Commun. 2024 January; 4(1): 236.

Supplementary Materials

PMID: 37377604