Historical Background
The mixed-lineage kinases are so named for their sequence similarity to both tyrosine kinases and serine/threonine kinases. However, based on biochemical assays, only serine/threonine kinase activity has been demonstrated for the MLKs. The three subfamilies of MLKs reside within the “tyrosine kinase-like” branch of the human kinome. Members of the MLK subfamily, comprised of MLK1-4, share a conserved domain arrangement and 75% identity within their catalytic domains (Fig. 1). The dual leucine zipper–bearing kinase (DLK) subgroup of MLKs, which includes DLK/ZPK/MUK and LZK, is characterized by a kinase catalytic domain followed by two leucine zipper motifs. A third subgroup of MLKs represented by ZAK/MLTK contains both a leucine zipper motif and a sterile-alpha motif. MLK3 has emerged as the paradigm for the MLK subfamily....
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Rattanasinchai, C., Chen, J., Gallo, K.A. (2018). MLK3. In: Choi, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Signaling Molecules. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67199-4_247
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67199-4_247
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