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Many pro-apoptotic signals trigger mitochondrial cytochrome c release, leading to caspase activation and ultimate cellular breakdown. Cell survival pathways, including the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) cascade, promote cell viability by impeding mitochondrial cytochrome c release and by inhibiting subsequent caspase activation. Here, we describe a mechanism for the inhibition of cytochrome c-induced caspase activation by MAPK signalling, identifying a novel mode of apoptotic regulation exerted through Apaf-1 phosphorylation by the 90-kDa ribosomal S6 kinase (Rsk). Recruitment of 14-3-3ɛ to phosphorylated Ser268 impedes the ability of cytochrome c to nucleate apoptosome formation and activate downstream caspases. High endogenous levels of Rsk in PC3 prostate cancer cells or Rsk activation in other cell types promoted 14-3-3ɛ binding to Apaf-1 and rendered the cells insensitive to cytochrome c, suggesting a potential role for Rsk signalling in apoptotic resistance of prostate cancers and other cancers with elevated Rsk activity. Collectively, these results identify a novel locus of apoptosomal regulation wherein MAPK signalling promotes Rsk-catalysed Apaf-1 phosphorylation and consequent binding of 14-3-3ɛ, resulting in decreased cellular responsiveness to cytochrome c.
Pubmed ID: 22246185
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Computational biology resource for investigating candidate functional sites in eukarytic proteins. Functional sites which fit to the description linear motif are currently specified as patterns using Regular Expression rules. To improve the predictive power, context-based rules and logical filters are being developed and applied to reduce the amount of false positives. The current version of the ELM server provides core functionality including filtering by cell compartment, phylogeny, globular domain clash (using the SMART/Pfam databases) and structure. In addition, both the known ELM instances and any positionally conserved matches in sequences similar to ELM instance sequences are identified and displayed (see ELM instance mapper). Although the ELM resource contains a large collection of functional site motifs, the current set of motifs is not exhaustive.
View all literature mentionsScansite searches for motifs within proteins that are likely to be phosphorylated by specific protein kinases or bind to domains such as SH2 domains, 14-3-3 domains or PDZ domains. The Motifscanner program utilizes an entropy approach that assesses the probability of a site matching the motif using the selectivity values and sums the logs of the probability values for each amino acid in the candidate sequence. The program then indicates the percentile ranking of the candidate motif in respect to all potential motifs in proteins of a protein database. When available, percentile scores of some confirmed phosphorylation sites for the kinase of interests or confirmed binding sites of the domain of interest are provided for comparison with the scores of the candidate motifs.
View all literature mentionsSoftware that detects kinase-specific phosphorylation sites. GPS provides a platform able to perform its prediction based on a group-based phosphorylation scoring algorithm. It allows users to query multiple protein sequences through a batch prediction mode.
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