Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 13, 2026

A Bilingual Computational Workflow for Identifying Potential PLK1 Inhibitors in American Sign Language and English
Published on: April 3, 2026
Molecular anatomy of PLK1 master docking motifs
Long Ren1, Arianna Esposito-Verza1, Raphael Gasper2
1Department of Mechanistic Cell Biology, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology, Dortmund, Germany.
None:
The Polo-box domain (PBD) localizes Polo-like kinase 1 (PLK1) near mitotic substrates required for chromosome biorientation. Recent work on mitotic kinetochores showed PLK1 docking begins hierarchically at master docking motifs on BUB1 and CENP-U. Whether master docking motifs have common molecular features remains poorly understood. Presence on CENP-U of two neighbouring motifs generated by initial CDK1 priming and subsequent PLK1 phosphorylation led us to hypothesize PBD dimerization might be involved. Using biochemical, biophysical, and modelling approaches, we gathered strong evidence that CENP-U contains a single master docking motif. The motif is very high affinity and sufficient to form extensive interactions with the PBD, engaging multiple pockets on its surface without obvious added benefits from dimerization. Comparisons with motifs in BUB1, BUBR1, and PRC1 suggest commonalities of master PLK1 docking motifs. We discuss the implications of our observations for the mechanism of PLK1 activation.
Related Concept Videos
Cytoskeletal Linker Proteins - Plakins
Assembly of Signaling Complexes
Interaction domains in cell signaling
Interaction domains recognize exposed features of their binding partners containing post-translationally modified sequences,...
Lipids as Anchors
The carboxy-terminal of most of the prenylated proteins, such as Ras proteins, contains the...
Conserved Binding Sites
Binding sites are often located in large pockets, and if their location on a protein’s surface is unknown, it can be predicted using various approaches. The energetic method computationally analyses the...
Cytoskeletal Accessory Proteins
Ligand Binding and Linkage
