A CBM project winner of the CNRS premature program

This project entitled "Preclinical Validation of LIMK Inhibitors in Cancer" will receive specific financial support. It is led by Hélène Benedetti, a researcher at the Center for Molecular Biophysics (CBM), and Sylvain Routier, a researcher at the Institute of Organic and Analytical Chemistry (ICOA). Its goal is to determine the efficacy of inhibitors, protein kinases LIMKs, new therapeutic targets particularly interesting to treat cancers for which existing therapies are ineffective. Prematuration will make it possible to characterize the cellular effect of these compounds and to determine their pharmacokinetic properties with a view to performing in vivo tests on three cancer models.

Everything you’ve always wanted to know about protein/protein interactions and kinase activity assays is in a paper published in JOVE.

"Cell signalling" group led by the Dr H. Bénédetti has published a video paper in JOVE, Journal of Visualized Experiments, a peer-reviewed scientific journal that publishes experimental methods in video format.

This paper belongs to the Method section focusing on basic technics in Biochemistry.

Different experiments are detailled:

- Transient cell transfections
- Protein extraction
- Study of protein/protein interaction by co-immunoprecipitation experiments
- Study of kinase activity by g32P-[ATP] labeling or by using phospho-specific antibodies

All these different technics are illustrated with data obtained by the group on LIMK2-1, a new protein the team has just pointed out and characterized. LIMK2-1 protein does exist, and it is very atypical in the way it regulates actin cytoskeleton remodeling.