The cellular geography of aurora kinases

Aurora is the name given to a family of highly conserved protein kinases with essential roles in many aspects of cell division. Yeasts have a single Aurora kinase, whereas mammals have three: Aurora A, B and C. During mitosis, Aurora kinases regulate the structure and function of the cytoskeleton and chromosomes and the interactions between these two at the kinetochore. They also regulate signalling by the spindle-assembly checkpoint pathway and cytokinesis. Perturbation of Aurora kinase expression or function might lead to cancer.