Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: EC:2.7.11.1 (protein kinase)
 81,284 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

PINCH is a widely expressed and evolutionarily conserved protein comprising primarily five LIM domains, which are cysteine-rich consensus sequences implicated in mediating protein-protein interactions. We report here that PINCH is a binding protein for integrin-linked kinase (ILK), an intracellular serine/threonine protein kinase that plays important roles in the cell adhesion, growth factor, and Wnt signaling pathways. The interaction between ILK and PINCH has been consistently observed under a variety of experimental conditions. They have interacted in yeast two-hybrid assays, in solution, and in solid-phase-based binding assays. Furthermore, ILK, but not vinculin or focal adhesion kinase, has been coisolated with PINCH from mammalian cells by immunoaffinity chromatography, indicating that PINCH and ILK associate with each other in vivo. The PINCH-ILK interaction is mediated by the N-terminal-most LIM domain (LIM1, residues 1 to 70) of PINCH and multiple ankyrin (ANK) repeats located within the N-terminal domain (residues 1 to 163) of ILK. Additionally, biochemical studies indicate that ILK, through the interaction with PINCH, is capable of forming a ternary complex with Nck-2, an SH2/SH3-containing adapter protein implicated in growth factor receptor kinase and small GTPase signaling pathways. Finally, we have found that PINCH is concentrated in peripheral ruffles of cells spreading on fibronectin and have detected clusters of PINCH that are colocalized with the alpha5beta1 integrins. These results demonstrate a specific protein recognition mechanism utilizing a specific LIM domain and multiple ANK repeats and suggest that PINCH functions as an adapter protein connecting ILK and the integrins with components of growth factor receptor kinase and small GTPase signaling pathways.
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PMID:The LIM-only protein PINCH directly interacts with integrin-linked kinase and is recruited to integrin-rich sites in spreading cells. 1002 29

Integrin-linked kinase (ILK) is a focal adhesion serine/threonine protein kinase that is emerging as a key signaling protein functioning at one of the early convergence points of integrin- and growth factor-signaling pathways. ILK binds to PINCH through the N-terminal ankyrin (ANK) repeat domain and the PINCH binding is crucial for focal adhesion localization of ILK. The ILK-PINCH interaction also connects ILK to Nck-2, an SH2-SH3-containing adaptor protein that interacts with components of growth factor and small GTPase signaling pathways. The kinase activity of ILK is regulated by both cell adhesion and growth factors in a phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)-dependent manner. ILK phosphorylates downstream targets such as protein kinase B (PKB, also known as Akt) and glycogen synthase kinase 3 (GSK-3) and regulates their activities. Overexpression of ILK in epithelial cells leads to striking morphological changes mimicking epithelial-mesenchymal transition, including upregulation of integrin-mediated fibronectin matrix assembly and downregulation of cell-cell adhesions. Furthermore, ILK regulates nuclear translocation of (beta)-catenin and gene expression, and promotes cell cycle progression and tumor formation. Recent genetic studies in Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans have shown that lack of expression of ILK or PINCH results in phenotypes resembling those of integrin-null mutants, which demonstrates that ILK and PINCH are indispensable for integrin function during embryonic development.
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PMID:Integrin-linked kinase and PINCH: partners in regulation of cell-extracellular matrix interaction and signal transduction. 1057 98