Aurora kinases: novel therapy targets in cancers

// Anqun Tang 1,* , Keyu Gao 1,* , Laili Chu 1,* , Rui Zhang 1 , Jing Yang 1 and Junnian Zheng 1,2 1 Jiangsu Center for the Collaboration and Innovation of Cancer Biotherapy, Cancer Institute, Jiangsu, China 2 Department of Oncology, The First Affiliated Hospital, Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, Jiangsu, China * These authors have contributed equally to this work Correspondence to: Junnian Zheng, email: // Jing Yang, email: // Keywords : Aurora kinases, mitosis, cancer therapy target, Aurora kinases inhibitors, combination therapy Received : November 01, 2016 Accepted : January 17, 2017 Published : January 29, 2017 Abstract Aurora kinases, a family of serine/threonine kinases, consisting of Aurora A (AURKA), Aurora B (AURKB) and Aurora C (AURKC), are essential kinases for cell division via regulating mitosis especially the process of chromosomal segregation. Besides regulating mitosis, Aurora kinases have been implicated in regulating meiosis. The deletion of Aurora kinases could lead to failure of cell division and impair the embryonic development. Overexpression or gene amplification of Aurora kinases has been clarified in a number of cancers. And a growing number of studies have demonstrated that inhibition of Aurora kinases could potentiate the effect of chemotherapies. For the past decades, a series of Aurora kinases inhibitors (AKIs) developed effectively repress the progression and growth of many cancers both in vivo and in vitro , suggesting that Aurora kinases could be a novel therapeutic target. In this review, we’ll first briefly present the structure, localization and physiological functions of Aurora kinases in mitosis, then describe the oncogenic role of Aurora kinases in tumorigenesis, we shall finally discuss the outcomes of AKIs combination with conventional therapy.