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AURKA (Aurora kinase A) is a protein kinase, an enzyme that switches other proteins on by adding phosphate groups. The public catalogues list it as a drug target and a biomarker, and clinical evidence ties its variants to diagnosis, prognosis or drug response. Tied to Oesophageal cancer, Ovarian cancer and Non-small-cell lung cancer.
Mitotic serine/threonine kinase that contributes to the regulation of cell cycle progression. Associates with the centrosome and the spindle microtubules during mitosis and plays a critical role in various mitotic events including the establishment of mitotic spindle, centrosome duplication, centrosome separation as well as maturation, chromosomal alignment, spindle assembly checkpoint, and cytokinesis. Required for normal spindle positioning during mitosis and for the localisation of NUMA1 and DCTN1 to the cell cortex during metaphase.
CIViC holds 7 clinical evidence items and 0 assertions across 3 variants, naming Cisplatin, Alisertib, Paclitaxel and Platinum Compound and others.
In plain words · AURKA (Aurora kinase A) is a protein kinase, an enzyme that switches other proteins on by adding phosphate groups. The public catalogues list it as a drug target and a biomarker, and clinical evidence ties its variants to diagnosis, prognosis or drug response. Tied to Oesophageal cancer, Ovarian cancer and Non-small-cell lung cancer.
AURKA (Aurora kinase A) is a protein kinase, an enzyme that switches other proteins on by adding phosphate groups. The public catalogues list it as a drug target and a biomarker, and clinical evidence ties its variants to diagnosis, prognosis or drug response. Tied to Oesophageal cancer, Ovarian cancer and Non-small-cell lung cancer.
Mitotic serine/threonine kinase that contributes to the regulation of cell cycle progression.
No product in this corpus aims at AURKA yet. Kinases are switched on by binding ATP inside the cell, so most drugs are small molecules shaped to plug that ATP pocket.
Broadly expressed or essential: HPA lists AURKA among essential proteins; a medicine acting on the wild-type protein would expose normal tissue too. HPA AURKA: RNA tissue enhanced (lymphoid tissue 21 nTPM, testis 29 nTPM); no normal tissue stained high; highest cancer staining colorectal cancer (2 of 12 high). Distribution: 3 cancer families in the corpus carry a prevalence row, label threshold or catalogue link for it (Oesophageal cancer, Ovarian cancer, Lung cancer (all types)); Open Targets associates it with 0 specific cancer types at or above 0.5. (Rule 7 of scripts/fetch-target-specificity.ts.)
Sources: Human Protein Atlas AURKA tissue; Open Targets ENSG00000087586 associations
First described 1997. Earliest sequence paper UniProt cites for the protein: Kimura et al, J. Biol. Chem, 1997, "Cell cycle-dependent expression and spindle pole localization of a novel human protein kinase, Aik, related to Aurora of Drosophila and yeast Ipl1". Source.
Sources: HGNC HGNC:11393 (approved symbol, name, aliases, locus and cross-references (hgnc_complete_set.txt)); UniProt O14965 (protein name, function text, keywords and locations (REST API)); CIViC gene AURKA (7 evidence items, 0 assertions, 3 variants; diseases: Oesophagus Adenocarcinoma, Lung Non-small Cell Carcinoma, Ovarian Carcinoma, Ovarian Serous Carcinoma, Oesophagus Squamous Cell Carcinoma and 1 more (GraphQL API, CC0))
Mitotic serine/threonine kinase that contributes to the regulation of cell cycle progression. Associates with the centrosome and the spindle microtubules during mitosis and plays a critical role in various mitotic events including the establishment of mitotic spindle, centrosome duplication, centrosome separation as well as maturation, chromosomal alignment, spindle assembly checkpoint, and cytokinesis. Required for normal spindle positioning during mitosis and for the localisation of NUMA1 and DCTN1 to the cell cortex during metaphase. Required for initial activation of CDK1 at centrosomes. Phosphorylates numerous target proteins, including ARHGEF2, BORA, BRCA1, CDC25B, DLGP5, HDAC6, KIF2A, LATS2, NDEL1, PARD3, PPP1R2, PLK1, RASSF1, TACC3, p53/TP53 and TPX2. Phosphorylates MCRS1 which is required for MCRS1-mediated kinetochore fibre assembly and mitotic progression. Location: Cytoplasm, cytoskeleton, microtubule organizing center, centrosome; Cytoplasm, cytoskeleton, spindle pole; Cytoplasm, cytoskeleton, microtubule organizing center, centrosome, centriole; Cell projection, neuron projection (UniProt). Locus 20q13.2 (HGNC).
RNA: tissue enhanced (lymphoid tissue 21 nTPM, testis 29 nTPM), detected in many normal tissues.
No normal tissue stained high; medium in Testis, Tonsil.
Medium only: cervical cancer, lung cancer, stomach cancer, testis cancer.
HPA AURKA tissue · HPA AURKA pathology · HPA protein class: Essential proteins
Human Protein Atlas version 25.1, antibody staining at reliability approved, enhanced or supported; used under CC BY-SA 3.0. Staining counts are patients per level in the atlas cohort, not population prevalence.
| Cancer | Prevalence | Measure | Note | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prostate cancer | 0.1-4% | Co-amplification, enriched in neuroendocrine disease | Overexpression and gene amplification of AURKA and MYCN were found in 40% of neuroendocrine prostate cancers and 5% of adenocarcinomas in a profiling series of 7 neuroendocrine, 30 adenocarcinoma and 5 benign tissues validated by immunohistochemistry and fluorescence in situ hybridisation on 37 neuroendocrine, 169 adenocarcinoma and 22 benign samples (Beltran 2011). cBioPortal high-level amplification: AURKA 18 of 444, 4.1%, in prad_su2c_2019 (where 3q and 20q gains inflate the call); 2 of 2,260, 0.1%, in prostate_msk_2024. MYCN amplification 8 of 444, 1.8%, in prad_su2c_2019 and 5 of 2,260, 0.2%, in prostate_msk_2024. | doi.org |
Approximate, population-level figures; the measure column says what was counted. Ranges show the midpoint as a bar.
It offers the first credible explanation for why only a minority of small-cell patients get a durable benefit from checkpoint blockade, and it introduces subtype switching, which would mean retesting at relapse rather than typing once.
It was the first evidence that neuroendocrine prostate cancer is a distinct molecular disease with its own candidate drug target, and it started the programme of Aurora kinase trials in this setting, which have since disappointed.
Query for this target: (TITLE:"AURKA" OR ABSTRACT:"AURKA" OR TITLE:"aurora kinase A" OR ABSTRACT:"aurora kinase A" OR TITLE:"Aurora kinase A" OR ABSTRACT:"Aurora kinase A" OR TITLE:"AurA" OR ABSTRACT:"AurA" OR TITLE:"STK7" OR ABSTRACT:"STK7" OR TITLE:"ARK1" OR ABSTRACT:"ARK1") AND (cancer OR tumor OR tumour OR oncology OR carcinoma OR lymphoma OR leukemia OR leukaemia OR myeloma OR sarcoma OR melanoma OR glioma). Results are unfiltered search hits about AURKA, not a curated reading list.
Shares MPS1 (TTK), Checkpoint (two meanings), CIViC.
Shares Molecular characterisation of neuroendocrine prostate cancer and identification of new drug targets, Treatment-emergent neuroendocrine transformation (recognising it), CIViC, Prostate cancer.
Shares MPS1 (TTK), Checkpoint (two meanings).
Shares Checkpoint (two meanings), CIViC, Prostate cancer.
Shares MYC, Oesophageal cancer, CIViC.
Shares MYC, Checkpoint (two meanings), CIViC.
Shares Patterns of transcription factor programs and immune pathway activation define four major subtypes of SCLC with distinct therapeutic vulnerabilities, Oesophageal cancer, CIViC.
Shares Checkpoint (two meanings), Ovarian cancer, Non-small-cell lung cancer.