Description
Recombinant human MELK (1-340) was expressed by baculovirus in Sf9 insect cells using an N-terminal GST tag. The gene accession number is NM_014791.
MELK or maternal embryonic leucine zipper kinase is a member of the CAMKL kinase family. MELK is a key regulator of the proliferation of malignant brain tumors including their stem cells (1). MELK transcript abundance correlates with malignancy grade in human astrocytomas and represents a therapeutic target for the management of the most frequent brain tumors in adult and children. MELK also plays a role in mammary carcinogenesis through inhibition of the pro-apoptotic function of Bcl-GL (2). Therefore, the kinase activity of MELK could be a promising molecular target for development of therapy for patients with breast cancers