In 20th Annual Medical Research Council (MRC) Lecture at the SOT Annual Meeting and ToxExpo, Dr. John D. Scott of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Department of Pharmacology at University of Washington delivered a talk, in a delightful Scottish brogue, on guiding signals through anchored enzyme complexes.
To begin the lecture, Dr. Scott outlined a few of the scientific concepts at the base of his work, such as defective cell communication underlies disease and signal transduction is the most common method of cell-to-cell communication. He then related how Kinase Anchoring enhances signaling specificity.
The bulk of Dr. Scott’s presentation centered on the A-Kinase Anchoring Protein (AKAP). Researchers have discovered that 50 different genes are involved in AKAP’s signaling processes, and the AKAP is at the crux of signaling that can occur in two directions, including reversing a signal. Dr. Scott conveyed that AKAP targeting provides an efficient means to reversibly control the phosphorylation status of key substrates and contributes to the dynamic regulation of sophisticated cellular events. A claim he backed up with a series of slides that illustrated how this process occurs.
UPDATE: A recording of the full lecture is available on the SOT Annual Meeting Website.