Proliferation markers, such as proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), Ki-67, and thymidine kinase 1 (TK1), have potential as diagnostic tools and as prognostic factors in assessing cancer treatment and disease progression. TK1 is involved in cellular proliferation through the recovery of the nucleotide thymidine in the DNA salvage pathway. TK1 upregulation has been found to be an early event in cancer development. In addition, serum levels of TK1 have been shown to be tied to cancer stage, so that higher levels of TK1 indicate a more serious prognosis. As a result of these findings and others, TK1 is not only a potentially viable biomarker for cancer recurrence, treatment monitoring, and survival, but is potentially more advantageous than current biomarkers. Compared to other proliferation markers, TK1 levels during S phase more accurately determine the rate of DNA synthesis in actively dividing tumors. Several reviews of TK1 elaborate on various assays that have been developed to measure levels in the serum of cancer patients in clinical settings. In this review, we include a brief history of important TK1 discoveries and findings, a comprehensive overview of TK1 regulation at DNA to protein levels, and recent findings that indicate TK1’s potential role in cancer pathogenesis and its growing potential as a tumor biomarker and therapeutic target.

中文翻译：

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胸腺嘧啶激酶1的时代：全面审查

增殖标志物，例如增殖细胞核抗原（PCNA），Ki-67和胸苷激酶1（TK1），具有潜在的诊断工具和评估癌症治疗和疾病进展的预后因素。TK1通过DNA挽救途径中核苷酸胸苷的回收参与细胞增殖。已经发现TK1上调是癌症发展中的早期事件。此外，已证明血清TK1水平与癌症分期有关，因此，较高水平的TK1表示更严重的预后。这些发现和其他发现的结果是，TK1不仅是可能用于癌症复发，治疗监测和生存的生物标志物，而且可能比目前的生物标志物更具优势。与其他增殖标记相比，S期的TK1水平可更准确地确定活跃分裂肿瘤中DNA的合成速率。对TK1的一些评论详细阐述了已开发出的各种检测方法，用于在临床环境中测量癌症患者血清中的水平。在本综述中，我们包括TK1重要发现和发现的简要历史，从DNA到蛋白质水平对TK1调控的全面概述，以及表明TK1在癌症发病机理中的潜在作用及其作为肿瘤生物标志物和治疗靶标的增长潜力的最新发现。 。