Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Polo-like Kinase (PLK)

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Signaling Molecules

  • 76 Accesses

Synonyms

CaCdc5 (PLK in Candida albicans); Cdc5 (PLK in Saccharomyces cerevisiae); Plk1/SmPlk1; Plk4/SmSak (PLKs in Schistosoma mansoni); PLK1; PLK2/hSNK; PLK3/PRK; PLK4/SAK; PLK5 (PLKs in Homo sapiens); Plk1; Plk2/SNK; PLK3/FNK; Plk4 and Plk5 (PLKs in Mus musculus); plk1; plk2; plk3; ZYG-1 (PLKs in Caenorhabditis elegans); PLK1; PLK2; PLK4/SAK (PLKs in Strongylocentrotus purpuratus); plk1; plk2b; plk3; plk4 (PLKs in Danio rerio); PLKA (PLK in Aspergillus nidulans); plo1 (PLK in Schizosaccharomyces pombe); Plx1; Plx2; Plx3 (PLK in Xenopus laevis); TbPLK (PLK in Trypanosoma brucei).

Historical Background

Different protein kinases govern the progression of cell cycle by the phosphorylation of an array of their respective substrates. The key cell cycle kinases are polo-like kinase (PLK), cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK), and aurora kinases (AURK), which are evolutionarily conserved in eukaryotes from yeast to humans (Vaid et al. 2016). Polo-like kinases are serine/threonine kinases...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Archambault V, Glover DM. Polo-like kinases: conservation and divergence in their functions and regulation. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2009;10:265–75.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Archambault V, Lepine G, Kachaner D. Understanding the Polo kinase machine. Oncogene. 2015;34:4799–7.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Cirillo L, Thomas Y, Pintard L, Gotta M. BORA-dependent PLK1 regulation: A new weapon for cancer therapy? Mol Cell Oncol. 2016;3:e1199265.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Fenton B, Glover DM. A conserved mitotic kinase active at late anaphase-telophase in syncytial Drosophila embryos. Nature. 1993;363:637–40.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • He ZL, Zheng H, Lin H, Miao XY, Zhong DW. Overexpression of polo-like kinase1 predicts a poor prognosis in hepatocellular carcinoma patients. World J Gastroenterol. 2009;15:4177–82.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Jang J, Terrence R, Burke JTR, Hymel D. Peptidomimetics targeting the Polo-box domain of Polo-like kinase 1. J Emerg Invest. 2016;8:1–7.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lane HA, Nigg EA. Antibody microinjection reveals an essential role for human polo-like kinase 1 (Plk1) in the functional maturation of mitotic centrosomes. J Cell Biol. 1996;135:1701–13.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lee BH, Amon A. Polo kinase-meiotic cell cycle coordinator. Cell Cycle. 2003;2:400–2.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lee K, Erikson RL. Plk Is a functional homolog of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Cdc5, and elevated Plk activity induces multiple septation structures. Mol Cell Biol. 1997;17:3408–17.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Lee KS, Park JE, Asano S, Park CJ. Yeast polo-like kinases: functionally conserved multitask mitotic regulators. Oncogene. 2005;24:217–29.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lowery DM, Lim D, Yaffe MB. Structure and function of Polo-like kinases. Oncogene. 2005;24:248–59.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Nasmyth K. At the heart of the budding yeast cell cycle. Trends Genet. 1996;12:405–12.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ohkura H, Hagan IM, Glover DM. The conserved Schizosaccharomyces pombe kinase plo1, required to form a bipolar spindle, the actin ring and septum can drive septum formation in G1 and G2 cells. Genes Dev. 1995;9:1059–73.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ohta M, Sato M, Yamamoto M. Spindle pole body components are reorganized during fission yeast meiosis. Mol Biol Cell. 2012;23:1799–11.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Park JE, Soung NK, Johmura Y, Kang YH, Liao C, Lac KH, Park CH, Nicklaus MC, Lee KS. Polo box domain: a versatile mediator of polo-like kinase functions. Cell Mol Life Sci. 2010;67:1957–70.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Park JE, Kim TS, Meng L, Bang JK, Kim BY, Lee KS. Putting a bit into the polo-box domain of polo-like kinase 1. J Anal Sci Tech. 2015;6:27.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Qian YW, Erikson E, Taieb FE, Maller JL. The polo-like kinase Plx1 is required for activation of the phosphatase Cdc25C and cyclin B-Cdc2 in Xenopus oocytes. Mol Cell Biol. 2001;12:1791–9.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Sourirajan A, Lichten M. Polo-like kinase Cdc5 drives exit from pachytene during budding yeast meiosis. Genes Dev. 2008;22:2627–32.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Vaid R, Sharma N, Chauhan S, Deshta A, Dev K, Sourirajan A. Functions of polo-like kinases: a journey from yeast to humans. Protein Pept Lett. 2016;23:185–97.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Zitouni S, Nabais C, Jana SC, Guerrero A, Bettencourt-Dias M. Polo-like kinases: structural variations lead to multiple functions. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2014;15:433–52.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Author notes

  1. Nitin Sharma and Rajni Vaid have been contributed equally

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Applied Sciences and Biotechnology, Shoolini University, Solan, Himachal Pradesh, 173212, India

    Nitin Sharma, Rajni Vaid, Kamal Dev & Anuradha Sourirajan

Authors
  1. Nitin Sharma
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Rajni Vaid
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Kamal Dev
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Anuradha Sourirajan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anuradha Sourirajan .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Biological Science, Department of Molecular Science and Tech College of Natural Science, Suwon, Korea (Republic of)

    Sangdun Choi

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer Science+Business Media LLC

About this entry

Cite this entry

Sharma, N., Vaid, R., Dev, K., Sourirajan, A. (2017). Polo-like Kinase (PLK). In: Choi, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Signaling Molecules. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6438-9_101760-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6438-9_101760-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-6438-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6438-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Biomedicine and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation