B-Raf

By Christina Towers, PhD

Mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) are important signaling proteins needed to transmit and relay extracellular stimuli and to illicit intracellular responses (1). The MAPK family of proteins are serine/threonine kinases that are able to phosphorylate and activate downstream kinases in a signal cascade that regulates diverse cell responses such as gene expression, metabolism, apoptosis, and differentiation (1). Notable members of the MAPK family include ERK, JNK, and p38 (1).

The protein encoded by SNF5 is a component of the chromatin-remodeling protein complex responsible for relieving repressive chromatin structures by allowing the transcriptional machinery to access targets more effectively. SNF5 has been found to be a tumor suppressor, and mutations within it are associated with some malignant tumors. Two transcript variants encoding different isoforms exist. Scurr’s group published interesting findings on effector proteins in senescence in Cell¹.