Mouse anti-Human UCK2 monoclonal antibody, clone 2H23

Patients with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) continue to have a dismal prognosis. Potential biomarkers to determine prognosis and select targeted therapies are urgently needed for patients with HCC. This study aimed to elucidate the role of UCK2 in HCC prognosis and tumor progression. We performed a screen of public databases to identify functional genes associated with HCC tumorigenesis, progression, and outcome. We identified uridine-cytidine kinase 2 (UCK2) as a gene of interest for further study. UCK2 promoting HCC aggressiveness was demonstrated by evaluation of clinical samples, in vitro experiments, in vivo tumorigenicity, and transcript analysis. UCK2 expression was generally elevated in HCC and was significantly correlated with poor survival and inferior clinicopathological characteristics of HCC patients. A multivariate analysis revealed that high UCK2 expression was an independent factor for poor prognosis. In HCC cell lines, UCK2 knockdown suppressed cell migration and invasion and inhibited cell proliferation, while UCK2 overexpression had an opposite effect. Animal model experiments confirmed that knockdown of UCK2 suppressed tumor growth in vivo. The bioinformatics analysis demonstrated that UCK2 might associated with metabolsim, splicesome, and adherens junction. UCK2 is highly associated with HCC malignant behavior and is a potential prognostic predictor for HCC patients in the clinic.

Uridine-cytidine nucleoside kinase 2 (UCK2) is the rate-limiting enzyme in the pyrimidine-nucleotide salvage pathway. UCK2 catalyzes the phosphorylation of the natural ribonucleosides cytidine and uridine to cytidine 5'-monophosphate (CMP) and uridine 5'-monophosphate (UMP), respectively, and activates several important frontline antimetabolite drugs. The present contribution reports the rapid crystal structure determination of human UCK2 complexed with a magnesium ion and the reaction products adenosine 5'-diphosphate (ADP) and CMR Diffraction data were collected on a copper rotating-anode X-ray generator from one native UCK2 crystal and a single samarium-derivative crystal. Utilizing the relatively high anomalous signal from the samarium derivative at the Cu Kalpha wavelength, the structure was determined by single isomorphous replacement and single anomalous signal (SIRAS) phasing techniques. Two of the four major samarium sites are located in the active sites of the two UCK2 molecules that form the asymmetric unit and appear to displace the magnesium ions present in the native crystals. The crystal structures of UCK2 alone and in complex with various ligands have recently been determined using traditional multiple isomorphous replacement (MIR) phasing techniques and data from three heavy-atom derivatives. The reported structures validate our independently determined structure. Of more than 1000 kinase crystal structure entries in the Protein Data Bank, less than 1% of them have been determined by SIRAS. For the published kinase crystal structures determined by SIRAS, all data were reportedly collected at various synchrotron-radiation facilities. This study demonstrates that diffraction data collected from a single samarium derivative using Cu Kalpha radiation provides sufficient phasing power to determine a novel macromolecular crystal structure.