极光(aurora)激酶在细胞有丝分裂和肿瘤形成中的重要功能

极光激酶（aurora kinases）是负责调控细胞有丝分裂的一类重要的丝氨酸／苏氨酸激酶。在不同的模式生物中，极光激酶各家族成员的结构和功能都高度保守。近年来，随着极光激酶相关研究的不断深入，人们逐渐认识到极光激酶在细胞有丝分裂以及肿瘤形成中的重要功能。在细胞有丝分裂中，极光激酶参与了诸如中心体成熟分离、纺锤体组装和维持、染色体分离以及胞质分裂等多个事件。异常表达的极光激酶往往会导致细胞在有丝分裂的过程中出现大量的异常现象。此外，极光激酶还参与了肿瘤形成的过程，已经发现一些靶向作用于极光的小分子具有显著的抑癌作用。本文围绕哺乳动物的三种极光激酶，重点讨论了它们在细胞有丝分裂中的动态定位、生物学功能以及时空上的调节方式，并分析了异常表达的极光激酶参与肿瘤形成的可能途径，提出了肿瘤治疗的新思路。

The key functions of aurora kinases during cell mitosis and tumorigenesis

Aurora kinases, which are involved in the regulation of cell mitosis, belong to an important serine/ threonine kinases family. Both the structures and the functions.of aurora kinase family members are highly conserved in different model organisms. Due to the continuously deepening research on aurora kinases recently, the key functions of aurora kinases in cell mitosis and tumorigenesis have been gradually revealed. Aurora kinases play important roles in many events during cell mitosis, such as centrosome maturation and separation, spindle assembly and maintenance, chromosome segregation, cytokinesis and so on. Abnormal expression of aurora kinases usually lead to numerous abnormities in cell mitosis. Moreover, aurora kinases also function in tumorigenesis. Some small molecules targeting to aurora kinases were found to have significant roles in tumor inhibition. In this review, we mainly discussed the dynamic subcellular localization, biological function, tempo- ral and spatial regulation of the three aurora kinases in mammalian cells. We further make an analysis of the potential functions of aurora kinases in tumorigenesis and present our insights into the treatment of tumor.