Description
Protein kinases are enzymes that transfer a phosphate group from a phosphate donor, generally the g phosphate of ATP, onto an acceptor amino acid in a substrate protein. By this basic mechanism, protein kinases mediate most of the signal transduction in eukaryotic cells, regulating cellular metabolism, transcription, cell cycle progression, cytoskeletal rearrangement and cell movement, apoptosis, and differentiation. With more than 500 gene products, the protein kinase family is one of the largest families of proteins in eukaryotes. The family has been classified in 8 major groups based on sequence comparison of their tyrosine (PTK) or serine/threonine (STK) kinase catalytic domains. The AGC kinase group consists of 63 kinases including the cyclic nucleotide-regulated protein kinase (PKA & PKG) family, the diacylglycerol-activated/phospholipid-dependent protein kinase C (PKC) family, the related to PKA and PKC (RAC/Akt) protein kinase family, the kinases that phosphorylate G protein-coupled receptors family (ARK), and the kinases that phosphorylate ribosomal protein S6 family (RSK)