ArticleeLife2014
MELK is an oncogenic kinase essential for mitotic progression in basal-like breast cancer cells.
Article in eLife, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 75 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
75 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 121 citations in OpenAlex.
- Genome-wide screen identifies a novel prognostic signature for breast cancer survival.Oncotarget · 2017Pooled it
- An Exploratory Transcriptomic Classification Model for Psoriasis Based on Apoptosis-Associated and Proliferation-Apoptosis-Coupled Genes Using Explainable Machine Learning.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Article
- Phosphosite-specific co-regulation networks of MELK kinase: insights from integrative global phosphoproteomes.Journal, genetic engineering & biotechnology · 2026Article
- Maternal Embryonic Leucine Zipper Kinase (Biology · 2026Review
- lncAPNet enables the deciphering of lncRNA-mRNA connections in patient transcriptomic data.Bioinformatics advances · 2026Article
- The role of MELK in cancer: mechanisms and therapeutic options.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Review
- MELK as a Mediator of Stemness and Metastasis in Aggressive Subtypes of Breast Cancer.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Targeting MELK in tumor cells and tumor microenvironment: from function and mechanism to therapeutic application.Clinical & translational oncology : official publication of the Federation of Spanish Oncology Societies and of the National Cancer Institute of Mexico · 2025Review
- Maternal Embryonic Leucine Zipper Kinase (MELK) as a Promising Therapeutic Target in Triple Negative Breast Cancer.Anti-cancer agents in medicinal chemistry · 2025Review
- CRISPR/Cas9-based discovery of ccRCC therapeutic opportunities through molecular mechanism and immune microenvironment analysis.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Article
- Spatiotemporal regulation of MELK during mitosis.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2024Article
- Targeting the oncogenic transcription factor FOXM1 to improve outcomes in all subtypes of breast cancer.Breast cancer research : BCR · 2023Review
- Maternal Embryonic Leucine Zipper Kinase is Associated with Metastasis in Triple-negative Breast Cancer.Cancer research communications · 2023Article
- siRNA-Mediated MELK Knockdown Induces Accelerated Wound Healing with Increased Collagen Deposition.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Article
- Preclinical assessment of synergistic efficacy of MELK and CDK inhibitors in adrenocortical cancer.Journal of experimental & clinical cancer research : CR · 2022Article
- MELK predicts poor prognosis and promotes metastasis in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma via activating the NF‑κB pathway.International journal of oncology · 2022Article
- Targeting Apoptosis in Cancer.Current oncology reports · 2022Review
- Subtype-specific expression of MELK is partly due to copy number alterations in breast cancer.PloS one · 2022Article
- A Non-redundant Function of MNS5: A Class I α-1, 2 Mannosidase, in the Regulation of Endoplasmic Reticulum-Associated Degradation of Misfolded Glycoproteins.Frontiers in plant science · 2022Article
- A synthetic lethal screen identifies HDAC4 as a potential target in MELK overexpressing cancers.G3 (Bethesda, Md.) · 2021Article
15 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
18 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Despite marked advances in breast cancer therapy, basal-like breast cancer (BBC), an aggressive subtype of breast cancer usually lacking estrogen and progesterone receptors, remains difficult to treat. In this study, we report the identification of MELK as a novel oncogenic kinase from an in vivo tumorigenesis screen using a kinome-wide open reading frames (ORFs) library. Analysis of clinical data reveals a high level of MELK overexpression in BBC, a feature that is largely dependent on FoxM1, a master mitotic transcription factor that is also found to be highly overexpressed in BBC. Ablation of MELK selectively impairs proliferation of basal-like, but not luminal breast cancer cells both in vitro and in vivo. Mechanistically, depletion of MELK in BBC cells induces caspase-dependent cell death, preceded by defective mitosis. Finally, we find that Melk is not required for mouse development and physiology. Together, these data indicate that MELK is a normally non-essential kinase, but is critical for BBC and thus represents a promising selective therapeutic target for the most aggressive subtype of breast cancer.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.01763.001.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.