Protein kinase CK2 and angiogenesis.

CK2 is an ubiquitously expressed protein kinase, which is composed of two catalytic a- and a'- and two noncatalytic b-subunits. CK2 protein levels and kinase activity is elevated in rapidly proliferating cells including cancer cells. There is increasing evidence that CK2 also plays an essential role in angiogenesis, either by interaction or phosphorylation of growth factors or by phosphorylation or binding to proteins in signalling cascades, which are implicated in angiogenesis. Over the last ten years a great number of inhibitors for CK2 were detected, two of them are now in clinical phase II trials for the treatment of cancer patients. Some of these inhibitors were also found to be active in the inhibition of angiogenesis. Thus, CK2 inhibitors probably together with inhibitors of other signalling molecules involved in angiogenesis might be powerful tools for the treatment of cancer and cancer connected angiogenesis.