Molecular mechanisms controlling the localisation of protein kinase A

Abstract

cAMP-dependent protein kinases (PKA) are ubiquitous signalling molecules that mediate many extracellular signals in eukaryotes from yeast to men. Directing PKA to its substrates is an important level of control to ensure specificity of cAMP-mediated signal transduction. Unlike in yeast and fungi, in mammalian cells a relatively sophisticated insight has been obtained in the controls of PKA localisation and in fact has set the stage for future research on PKA targeting in unicellular eukaryotes. In this review, we present an integrated overview on molecular mechanisms of PKA regulatory and catalytic subunit localisation in both yeast and multicellular organisms; and we focus in more detail on recent advances of PKA localisation in the unicellular eukaryote Saccharomyces cerevisiae.