Dual specificity mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase 6 also known as MAP kinase kinase 6 (MAPKK 6) or MAPK/ERK kinase 6 is an

enzyme An enzyme () is a protein that acts as a biological catalyst by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrate (chemistry), substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different mol ...

that in humans is encoded by the ''MAP2K6''

gene In biology, the word gene has two meanings. The Mendelian gene is a basic unit of heredity. The molecular gene is a sequence of nucleotides in DNA that is transcribed to produce a functional RNA. There are two types of molecular genes: protei ...

, on

chromosome 17 Chromosome 17 is one of the 23 pairs of chromosomes in humans. People normally have two copies of this chromosome. Chromosome 17 spans more than 84 million base pairs (the building material of DNA) and represents between 2.5 and 3% of the total DN ...

Function

MAPKK 6 is a member of the dual specificity protein kinase family, which functions as a

mitogen-activated protein A mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK or MAP kinase) is a type of serine/threonine-specific protein kinases involved in directing cellular responses to a diverse array of stimuli, such as mitogens, osmotic stress, heat shock and proinflammato ...

(MAP) kinase kinase. MAP kinases, also known as

extracellular signal-regulated kinases This glossary of biology terms is a list of definitions of fundamental terms and concepts used in biology, the study of life and of living organisms. It is intended as introductory material for novices; for more specific and technical definitions ...

(ERKs), act as an integration point for multiple biochemical signals. This protein

phosphorylates In biochemistry, phosphorylation is described as the "transfer of a phosphate group" from a donor to an acceptor. A common phosphorylating agent (phosphate donor) is ATP and a common family of acceptor are alcohols: : This equation can be writt ...

and activates

p38 MAP kinase p38 mitogen-activated protein kinases are a class of mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) that are responsive to stress stimuli, such as cytokines, ultraviolet irradiation, heat shock, and osmotic shock, and are involved in cell differe ...

in response to inflammatory

cytokines Cytokines () are a broad and loose category of small proteins (~5–25 kDa) important in cell signaling. Cytokines are produced by a broad range of cells, including immune cells like macrophages, B cell, B lymphocytes, T cell, T lymphocytes ...

or environmental stress. As an essential component of p38 MAP kinase mediated

signal transduction pathway A signal is both the process and the result of transmission of data over some media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processing, information theory and biology. In ...

, this gene is involved in many cellular processes such as stress-induced cell cycle arrest, transcription activation and

apoptosis Apoptosis (from ) is a form of programmed cell death that occurs in multicellular organisms and in some eukaryotic, single-celled microorganisms such as yeast. Biochemistry, Biochemical events lead to characteristic cell changes (Morphology (biol ...

Interactions

MAP2K6 has been shown to interact with TAOK2,

ASK1 Apoptosis signal-regulating kinase 1 (ASK1) also known as mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase 5 (MAP3K5) is a member of MAP kinase family and as such a part of mitogen-activated protein kinase pathway. It activates c-Jun N-terminal kin ...

MAPK14 Mitogen-activated protein kinase 14, also called p38-α, is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the ''MAPK14'' gene. MAPK14 encodes p38α mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) which is the prototypic member of the p38 MAPK family. p38 MAP ...

and

MAP3K7 Mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase 7 (MAP3K7), also known as TAK1, is an enzyme that in humans is encoded by the ''MAP3K7'' gene. Structure TAK1 is an evolutionarily conserved kinase in the MAP3 K family and clusters with the tyro ...

Function

Interactions

References

Further reading