Disruption of the protein kinase N gene of drosophila melanogaster results in the recessive delorean allele (pkndln) with a negative impact on wing morphogenesis

The structure and function of protein kinase C-related kinases (PRKs)

The protein kinase C-related kinase (PRK) family of serine/threonine kinases, PRK1, PRK2 and PRK3, are effectors for the Rho family small G proteins. An array of studies have linked these kinases to multiple signalling pathways and physiological roles, but while PRK1 is relatively well-characterized, the entire PRK family remains understudied. Here, we provide a holistic overview of the structure and function of PRKs and describe the molecular events that govern activation and autoregulation of catalytic activity, including phosphorylation, protein interactions and lipid binding. We begin with a structural description of the regulatory and catalytic domains, which facilitates the understanding of their regulation in molecular detail. We then examine their diverse physiological roles in cytoskeletal reorganization, cell adhesion, chromatin remodelling, androgen receptor signalling, cell cycle regulation, the immune response, glucose metabolism and development, highlighting isoform redundancy but also isoform specificity. Finally, we consider the involvement of PRKs in pathologies, including cancer, heart disease and bacterial infections. The abundance of PRK-driven pathologies suggests that these enzymes will be good therapeutic targets and we briefly report some of the progress to date.

Drosophila protein kinase N (Pkn) is a negative regulator of actin-myosin activity during oogenesis

Nurse cell dumping is an actin-myosin based process, where 15 nurse cells of a given egg chamber contract and transfer their cytoplasmic content through the ring canals into the growing oocyte. We isolated two mutant alleles of protein kinase N (pkn) and showed that Pkn negatively-regulates activation of the actin-myosin cytoskeleton during the onset of dumping. Using live-cell imaging analysis we observed that nurse cell dumping rates sharply increase during the onset of fast dumping. Such rate increase was severely impaired in pkn mutant nurse cells due to excessive nurse cell actin-myosin activity and/or loss of tissue integrity. Our work demonstrates that the transition between slow and fast dumping is a discrete event, with at least a five to six-fold dumping rate increase. We show that Pkn negatively regulates nurse cell actin-myosin activity. This is likely to be important for directional cytoplasmic flow. We propose Pkn provides a negative feedback loop to help avoid excessive contractility after local activation of Rho GTPase.