Historical Background
The transmission of extracellular signals to intracellular targets is mediated by a network of signaling pathways. The ERK signaling cascade is a central regulator to a large number of cellular processes such as proliferation, differentiation, and migration; it is also one of the most studied pathways. The kinases ERK1 and ERK2 are activated by MEK kinase in the signaling cascade Ras/Raf/MEK/ERK, and then they phosphorylate protein substrates on serine and threonine residues.
Several years prior to ERK1 and ERK2 cloning, respectively, in 1990 and 1991 (Boulton et al. 1991), the close correlation between mitogen activation and the increased double phosphorylation of two proteins of 41 and 43 kDa on a phospho-tyrosine residue...
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Buscà, R., Pouysségur, J., Lenormand, P. (2018). ERK1 and ERK2. In: Choi, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Signaling Molecules. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67199-4_470
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67199-4_470
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