Selina Schwaighofer

Abstract Chordoid glioma (ChG) is a rare, low-grade brain tumor characterized by a novel recurrent point mutation, D463H, in the kinase domain of protein kinase C alpha (PKCα). The mutation is invariably an Asp to His substitution, suggesting it endows a unique function beyond catalytic inactivation associated with other cancer-associated PKCα mutations.

eLife assessment This article reports an important bioluminescence-based reporter system to evaluate kinase conformations. This assay is applied to four different kinases that have unique, very special regulatory features, thereby indicating that the assay can be used to provide convincing evidence on the conformational state of a large number of kinases. This paper will be of interest to researchers working on kinases and their conformational states.

Abstract Protein kinases act as central molecular switches in the control of cellular functions. Alterations in the regulation and function of protein kinases may provoke diseases including cancer. In this study we investigate the conformational states of such disease-associated kinases using the high sensitivity of the Kinase Conformation (KinCon)-reporter system. We first tracked BRAF-kinase activity conformation changes upon melanoma drug binding.