ArticleOncotarget2016
Oncogenic roles of TOPK and MELK, and effective growth suppression by small molecular inhibitors in kidney cancer cells.
Article in Oncotarget, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 35 papers.
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Who cites it
35 citing papers in PubMed, 48 citations in OpenAlex.
- Maternal Embryonic Leucine Zipper Kinase (Biology · 2026Review
- The Roles of TOPK in Tumorigenesis and Development: Structure, Mechanisms, Pathways, and Therapeutic Implications.International journal of biological sciences · 2026Review
- The role of MELK in cancer: mechanisms and therapeutic options.Frontiers in oncology · 2026Review
- RBM15 aggravates endometrial cancer progression by inducing PBK m6A modification to inhibit the p53 pathway.Cytotechnology · 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
- The role of T-LAK cell-originated protein kinase in targeted cancer therapy.Molecular and cellular biochemistry · 2022Review
- 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
- T-LAK cell-originated protein kinase (TOPK): an emerging prognostic biomarker and therapeutic target in osteosarcoma.Molecular oncology · 2021Article
- Functional genomics for breast cancer drug target discovery.Journal of human genetics · 2021Review
- High expression of maternal embryonic leucine-zipper kinase (MELK) impacts clinical outcomes in patients with ovarian cancer and its inhibition suppresses ovarian cancer cells growth ex vivo.Journal of gynecologic oncology · 2020Article
- T-LAK cell-originated protein kinase (TOPK) is a Novel Prognostic and Therapeutic Target in Chordoma.Cell proliferation · 2020Article
- Potent anti-myeloma activity of the TOPK inhibitor OTS514 in pre-clinical models.Cancer medicine · 2020Article
- Inhibition of MELK produces potential anti-tumour effects in bladder cancer by inducing G1/S cell cycle arrest via the ATM/CHK2/p53 pathway.Journal of cellular and molecular medicine · 2020Article
- Phillygenin, a MELK Inhibitor, Inhibits Cell Survival and Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition in Pancreatic Cancer Cells.OncoTargets and therapy · 2020Article
- Inhibition of MELK Protooncogene as an Innovative Treatment for Intrahepatic Cholangiocarcinoma.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2019Article
- Maternal embryonic leucine zipper kinase is a novel target for diffuse large B cell lymphoma and mantle cell lymphoma.Blood cancer journal · 2019Article
- Targeting PDZ-binding kinase is anti-tumorigenic in novel preclinical models of ACC.Endocrine-related cancer · 2019Article
- Off-target toxicity is a common mechanism of action of cancer drugs undergoing clinical trials.Science translational medicine · 2019Article
- Maternal Embryonic Leucine Zipper Kinase (MELK), a Potential Therapeutic Target for Neuroblastoma.Molecular cancer therapeutics · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
T-lymphokine-activated killer cell-originated protein kinase (TOPK) and maternal embryonic leucine zipper kinase (MELK) have been reported to play critical roles in cancer cell proliferation and maintenance of stemness. In this study, we investigated possible roles of TOPK and MELK in kidney cancer cells and found their growth promotive effect as well as some feedback mechanism between these two molecules. Interestingly, the blockade of either of these two kinases effectively caused downregulation of forkhead box protein M1 (FOXM1) activity which is known as an oncogenic transcriptional factor in various types of cancer cells. Small molecular compound inhibitors against TOPK (OTS514) and MELK (OTS167) effectively suppressed the kidney cancer cell growth, and the combination of these two compounds additively worked and showed the very strong growth suppressive effect on kidney cancer cells. Collectively, our results suggest that both TOPK and MELK are promising molecular targets for kidney cancer treatment and that dual blockade of OTS514 and OTS167 may bring additive anti-tumor effects with low risk of side effects.
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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.