※ NEK family introduction

    NEKs (Never in mitosis A-related kinases) are classified into "Other" group. Eleven members have been identified in human genome. NimA is the founding member of the NEK family of ser/thr kinases which is an essential regulator of mitosis. All NEK kinases except NEK10 contain N-terminal catalytic domain, followed by coiled-coiled motifs except in NEK4,6 and 7 members. And in C-terminal, PEST sequences are found in moreover 6 of 11 NEK kinases. Besides the homology regions, certain NEKs contain unique domain or sequences, such as RCC1 repeats, DEAD-box helicase-like domain and armadillo repeats. NEKs play an important role in a variety of cellular processes and functions via mediate the phosphorylation of substrates. Studies show that NEK2 is essential in control of centrosome splitting, NEK6, 7 and 9 have been found in regulating mitotic spindle and cytokinesis, NEK1 and NEK8 is related to ciliagenesis. NEKs act as key regulator function during mitosis and abnormal expression or mutations on NEKs gene will lead to some disease and cancers such ovarian cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer and so on (1).

Reference
1. Moniz, L., Dutt, P., Haider, N. and Stambolic, V. (2011) Nek family of kinases in cell cycle, checkpoint control and cancer. Cell Div, 6, 18. PMID: 22040655