A paper from
Suga Laboratory is published on
Scientific Reports, an online journal from Nature Publishing Group.
Hiroshi Suga & Todd Miller
Src signaling in a low-complexity unicellular kinome
Sci Rep 2018 8:5362. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-23721-8
The Src gene is involved in cell proliferation and differentiation in animals. Src plays important roles in developing multicellular systems, and the uncontrolled Src activity causes an unusually intense cell proliferation, which is cancer.
Src has long been considered to be specific to multicellular organisms. However,
Creolimax fragrantissima, a unicellular holozoan kept in Suga lab, has a Src gene with an unknown function.
In animals, Src is usually suppressed by another gene, which is called Csk. However
Creolimax does not have Csk. Not only the function of Src itself, but also the mechanism of suppressing Src without Csk in
Creolimax has been totally unknown.
Dr. Hiroshi Suga has solved, in collaboration with Dr. Todd Millar in Stony Brook University, these questions at least in part. Dr. Suga and his ex-students Kojiro Tokiyasu and Shuhei Murakami demonstrated (1) the
Creolimax Src is involved in the process of cell growth and (2) CfrPTP-3, which removes phosphate from Src, suppresses the Src activity without Csk. These results reveal for the first time the function and the regulatory mechanism of Src in a unicellular organism, potentially leading to answering the unsolved question: "Why do humans get cancer?"
A movie capturing the release of amoeba cells from a Creolimax mother cell.
A figure in the paper, demonstrating the Src is involved in cell growth, and its activity is regulated by CfrPTP-7.