Protein kinase C isozymes as therapeutic targets for treatment of human cancers

Abstract

Summary PKC isozymes play specific, non-redundant functional roles in numerous cellular processes,including proliferation, differentiation, cellular invasion and apoptosis. We have determinedthat PKCβII and PKCι are both critical pro-carcinogenic genes involved in multiple humancancers. PKCι is a bonafide human oncogene, the first PKC isozyme that can be so classified.Both PKCβII and PKCι are legitimate therapeutic targets to which novel targeted therapy hasbeen successfully developed and is being evaluated clinically. Acknowledgements We would like to thank all the members of the Fields laboratory for their contributions to the work described in thisreview. We would also like to acknowledge the work of the many investigators whose combined work has madecritical contributions to our understanding of PKC functions in cancer. Space limitations necessitated a relativelynarrow focus in this review. We apologize to colleagues whose contributions were not cited due to these constraints.The work described here was supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute to APF (R01 CA081436 andR01CA056869), and to NRM (R01CA094122). Additional funding was provided by the American Lung Association/LUNGevity Lung Cancer Discovery Award (LCD-22766-N), the James and Esther King Biomedical ResearchProgram, and the V Foundation for Cancer Research to APF.