Members of the highly conserved and ubiquitously expressed pleiotropic CK1 family play major regulatory roles in many cellular processes including DNA-processing and repair, proliferation, cytoskeleton dynamics, vesicular trafficking, apoptosis, and cell differentiation. As a consequence of cellular stress conditions, interaction of CK1 with the mitotic spindle is manifold increased pointing to regulatory functions at the mitotic checkpoint. Furthermore, CK1 is able to alter the activity of key proteins in signal transduction and signal integration molecules. In line with this notion, CK1 is tightly connected to the regulation and degradation of β-catenin, p53, and MDM2. Considering the importance of CK1 for accurate cell division and regulation of tumor suppressor functions, it is not surprising that mutations and alterations in the expression and/or activity of CK1 isoforms are often detected in various tumor entities including cancer of the kidney, choriocarcinomas, breast carcinomas, oral cancer, adenocarcinomas of the pancreas, and ovarian cancer. Therefore, scientific effort has enormously increased (i) to understand the regulation of CK1 and its involvement in tumorigenesis- and tumor progression-related signal transduction pathways and (ii) to develop CK1-specific inhibitors for the use in personalized therapy concepts. In this review, we summarize the current knowledge regarding CK1 regulation, function, and interaction with cellular proteins playing central roles in cellular stress-responses and carcinogenesis.

The involvement of protein kinase CK1δ in the pathogenesis of severe disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, familial advanced sleep phase syndrome, and cancer has dramatically increased interest in the development of effective small molecule inhibitors for both therapeutic application and basic research. Unfortunately, the design of CK1 isoform-specific compounds has proved to be highly complicated due to the existence of six evolutionarily conserved human CK1 members that possess similar, different, or even opposite physiological and pathophysiological implications. Consequently, only few potent and selective CK1δ inhibitors have been reported so far and structurally divergent approaches are urgently needed in order to establish SAR that might enable complete discrimination of CK1 isoforms and related p38α MAPK. In this study we report on design and characterization of optimized 4,5-diarylimidazoles as highly effective ATP-competitive inhibitors of CK1δ with compounds 11b (IC50 CK1δ = 4 nM, IC50 CK1ε = 25 nM), 12a (IC50 CK1δ = 19 nM, IC50 CK1ε = 227 nM), and 16b (IC50 CK1δ = 8 nM, IC50 CK1ε = 81 nM) being among the most potent CK1δ-targeting agents published to date. Inhibitor compound 11b, displaying potential as a pharmacological tool, has further been profiled over a panel of 321 protein kinases exhibiting high selectivity. Cellular efficacy has been evaluated in human pancreatic cancer cell lines Colo357 (EC50 = 3.5 µM) and Panc89 (EC50 = 1.5 µM). SAR is substantiated by X-ray crystallographic analysis of 16b in CK1δ and 11b in p38α.

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the fourth leading cause of cancer related death worldwide due to high apoptotic resistance and metastatic potential. Because mutations as well as deregulation of CK1 isoforms contribute to tumor development and tumor progression, CK1 has become an interesting drug target. In this study we show that CK1 isoforms are differently expressed in colon tumor cell lines and that growth of these cell lines can be inhibited by CK1-specific inhibitors. Furthermore, expression of CK1d and E is changed in colorectal tumors compared to normal bowel epithelium, and high CK1E expression levels significantly correlate with prolonged patients' survival. In addition to changes in CK1d and E expression, mutations within exon 3 of CK1d were detected in colorectal tumors. These mutations influence ATP binding resulting in changes in kinetic parameters of CK1d. Overexpression of these mutants in HT29 cells alters their ability to grow anchorage independently. Consistent with these results, these CK1d mutants lead to differences in proliferation rate and tumor size in xenografts due to changes in gene expression, especially in genes involved in regulation of cell proliferation, cell cycle, and apoptosis. In summary, our results provide evidence that changes in the expression levels of CK1 isoforms in colorectal tumors correlate with patients' survival. Furthermore, CK1 mutants affect growth and proliferation of tumor cells and induce tumor growth in xenografts, leading to the assumption that CK1 isoforms provide interesting targets for the development of novel effective therapeutic concepts to treat colorectal cancer.Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third most common cancer and the fourth leading cause of cancer related death in both men and women worldwide. 1,2 Since the 5-year survival rate of metastatic CRC is only about 10%, it is important to receive detailed information on molecular level regarding its carcinogenesis and progression and to search for new effective therapy concepts. Although modern treatment schemes have resulted in prolonged median survival of patients, the overall prognosis is still poor. Because of high apoptotic resistance and metastatic potential conventional chemotherapeutic concepts are often ineffective in the treatment of CRC, or are associated with severe side effects. Therefore, research efforts are currently focusing on the identification of novel target molecules. In line with this notion, drug discovery projects aiming to develop effective and isoform-specific CK1 inhibitors have drawn considerable interest. Members of the serine/threonine-specific CK1 family are evolutionary highly conserved and ubiquitously expressed in eukaryotic organisms. So far, seven distinct genes encoding mammalian CK1 isoforms a, b, g1, g2, g3, d, E and various splice variants have been characterized. CK1 isoforms play major regulatory

Casein kinase 1 (CK1) plays central roles in various signal transduction pathways and performs many cellular activities. For many years CK1 was thought to act independently of modulatory subunits and in a constitutive manner. Recently, DEAD box RNA helicases, in particular DEAD box RNA helicase 3 X-linked (DDX3X), were found to stimulate CK1 activity in vitro. In order to observe CK1 activity in living cells and to study its interaction with DDX3X, we developed a CK1-specific FRET biosensor. This tool revealed that DDX3X is indeed required for full CK1 activity in living cells. Two counteracting mechanisms control the activity of these enzymes. Phosphorylation by CK1 impairs the ATPase activity of DDX3X and RNA destabilizes the DDX3X–CK1 complex. We identified possible sites of interaction between DDX3X and CK1. While mutations identified in the DDX3X genes of human medulloblastoma patients can enhance CK1 activity in living cells, the mechanism of CK1 activation by DDX3X points to a possible therapeutic approach in CK1-related diseases such as those caused by tumors driven by aberrant Wnt/β-catenin and Sonic hedgehog (SHH) activation. Indeed, CK1 peptides can reduce CK1 activity.

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