Salt Inducible Kinase 1 (SIK1)

In Drosophila and C. elegans, signal transduction pathways initiated by the activation of receptor-protein tyrosine kinases can mediate developmental fate decisions. One, designated Hek2, encodes the mouse ortholog of human HEK2, a member of the eph receptor protein tyrosine kinase gene family. The other, designated msk (myocardial Snf1-like kinase), encodes a putative protein serine/threonine kinase most similar to the yeast protein Snf1, which is involved in the response to nutritional stress. Stephenson et al. (2004) found that Chinese hamster ovary cells expressing an inducible human SNF1LK kinase domain did not divide, but underwent additional rounds of replication to yield 8N and 16N cells. This data suggested a role for SNF1LK in G2/M regulation.