Protein Kinase and Pseudokinase in Cancer Biology

Protein kinase and pseudokinase is a large family of proteins that mediate diverse signalings through both catalytic and allosteric activities. This family of proteins has well-defined role in cancer biology, and targeting these proteins with small molecular inhibitors has achieved promising outcomes in current cancer therapy. However, there are still a lot of challenges (i.e. drug resistance) that remain unresolved, which severe impairs the application of kinase inhibitors in cancer treatment. Understanding the regulatory mechanisms of protein kinases and pseudokinases as well as their functional modes in cancer development, and hence designing more effective inhibitors, will propel the clinic treatment of cancers. In this special issue, we'll focus on the recent proceedings on studies of oncogenic RAF kinase and tyrosine kinases as well as other kinases/pseudokinases that play a critical role in cancer biology and on targeting these kinases/pseudokinases for cancer treatment.
The goal of this special issue will be to comprehensively summarize recent proceedings on mechanistic studies of protein kinases/pseudokinases in cancer biology and on targeted cancer therapy with kinase inhibitors, particularly those related to oncogenic RAF kinase and tyrosine kinases, and highlight the challenges and the future development of more effective kinase inhibitors for cancer treatment. In addition, this special issue will also present some novel discoveries in the field of protein kinases/pseudokinases in cancer biology as well as targeted cancer therapy with kinase inhibitors.

The scope of this special issue will include:

(1) mechanistic studies on the regulation of protein kinases/pseudokinases (particularly RAF kinase and tyrosine kinases such as EGFR, Abl) in cancer biology.
(2) Targeted cancer therapy with kinase inhibitors (particularly with RAF inhibitors and TKIs).
(3)The development of next-generation kinase inhibitors.