Junjie Ye, Mingjun Shi, Wei Chen, Feng Zhu* and Qiuhong Duan* Pages 3122 - 3133 ( 12 )
As serine/threonine-protein kinases, Thousand and One Kinases(TAOKs) are members of the GCKlike superfamily, one of two well-known branches of the Ste20 kinase family. Within the last two decades, three functionally similar kinases, namely TAOK1-3, were identified. TAOKs are involved in many molecular and cellular events. Scholars widely believe that TAOKs act as kinases upstream of the MAPK cascade and as factors that interact with MST family kinases, the cytoskeleton, and apoptosis-associated proteins. Therefore, TAOKs are thought to function in tumorigenesis. Additionally, TAOKs participate in signal transduction induced by Notch, TCR, and IL-17. Recent studies found that TAOKs play roles in a series of diseases and conditions, such as the central nervous system dysfunction, herpes viral infection, immune system imbalance, urogenital system malformation during development, cardiovascular events, and childhood obesity. Therefore, inhibitory chemicals targeting TAOKs may be of great significance as potential drugs for these diseases.
TAOK, signal pathways, disease, inhibitor, GCK-like superfamily, MAPK cascade.
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Basic Medicine, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430030, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Basic Medicine, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430030, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Basic Medicine, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430030, Cancer Research Institute, The Affiliated Hospital of Guilin Medical University, Guilin, Guangxi, 541000, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Basic Medicine, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430030