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 tyrosine-like kinase (TLK) group consists of 40 tyrosine and serine-threonine kinases such as MLK (mixed-lineage kinase), LISK (LIMK/TESK), IRAK (interleukin-1 receptor-associated kinase), Raf, RIPK (receptor-interacting protein kinase), and STRK (activin and TGF-beta receptors) families