MYLK
Overview
MYLK (Myosin Light Chain Kinase) encodes a kinase that phosphorylates the regulatory myosin light chain (MYL9), controlling actin-myosin contraction and cell motility. In normal skin melanocyte biology, MYLK is identified as a transcriptomic LowMut marker that distinguishes the low-UV-mutation-burden neural-crest-lineage subpopulation from the actively pigmenting HighMut subpopulation.
Alterations observed in the corpus
- MYLK is a transcriptomic LowMut marker in normal human skin melanocytes; expressed in the neural-crest-lineage subpopulation with clock-like (SBS1/SBS5) rather than UV-attributable (SBS7) mutation signatures. Co-expressed with MYL9, PALLD, NTNG1, VCAN, FBN1, ITM2A, TAGLN, and SGCE. PMID:39975212
- MYLK mRNA expression was highly elevated in leiomyosarcoma (LMS) relative to other sarcoma subtypes (p<5e-39), as part of a myogenic differentiation gene signature including MYH11, ACTG2, miR-143, and miR-145 that distinguished LMS in iCluster analysis PMID:29100075
Cancer types (linked)
- SKCM: The atlas was derived from non-lesional skin adjacent to a melanoma patient. MYLK expression marks the LowMut melanocyte state potentially relevant to understanding the UV-protected hair-follicle niche as a stem cell reservoir. No driver mutation role in melanoma is claimed. PMID:39975212
Co-occurrence and mutual exclusivity
- Co-expressed with MYL9 and other LowMut markers; mutually exclusive with HighMut pigmentation markers (HMOX1, ABCC2, MC1R, HERC2) at the single-cell level in normal melanocytes. PMID:39975212
Therapeutic relevance
- No direct therapeutic link reported in the corpus. PMID:39975212
Open questions
- Causal role of MYLK expression in defining or maintaining the LowMut melanocyte state (versus being a downstream marker of lineage identity) is not addressed. PMID:39975212
Sources
This page was processed by crosslinker on 2026-05-04. - PMID:29100075
This page was processed by wiki-cli on 2026-05-15.