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Mcl-1

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Cancer

  • 24 Accesses

Definition

Myeloid cell leukemia-1 (Mcl-1) is an antiapoptotic member of the Bcl-2 protein family and plays an integral role in cell survival and apoptosis. Mcl-1 is characterized by its short half-life, its wide intracellular localization, and the tight regulation of its transcription, translation, and degradation.

Characteristics

Structurally, Mcl-1 is unique among the Bcl-2 family. As other antiapoptotic Bcl-2 family proteins, Mcl-1 contains Bcl-2 homology regions (BH1-4 domains) and a transmembrane domain, which confer the ability to heterodimerize with other family members (e.g., proapoptotic proteins Bak and Bax) or to bind to membranes (e.g., cell membrane, mitochondrial membrane, nuclear envelope). Mcl-1 differs from its pro-survival family members in its larger size of 350 residues due to the presence of two polypeptide sequences enriched in proline (P), glutamic acid (E), serine (S), and threonine (T) (PEST). PEST regions are made responsible for Mcl-1 degradation via the...

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References

  • Del Gaizo Moore V, Letai A (2013) BH3 profiling – measuring integrated function of the mitochondrial apoptotic pathway to predict cell fate decisions. Cancer Lett 332(2):202

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  • Perciavalle RM, Opferman JT (2013) Delving deeper: MCL-1’s contributions to normal and cancer biology. Trends Cell Biol 23(1):22–29

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  • Thomas LW, Lam C, Edwards SW (2010) Mcl-1; the molecular regulation of protein function. FEBS Lett 584(14):2981–2989

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Medical Oncology, National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT), University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany

    Klaus Podar

Authors
  1. Klaus Podar
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Correspondence to Klaus Podar .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Abt. Tumorgenetik, Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, Heidelberg, Germany

    Manfred Schwab

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Podar, K. (2015). Mcl-1. In: Schwab, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Cancer. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27841-9_7232-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27841-9_7232-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-27841-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Biomedicine and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences

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