MAPK12

Mitogen-activated protein kinase 12 is a protein in humans that is encoded by MAPK12 gene. Serine/threonine kinase which acts as an essential component of the MAP kinase signal transduction pathway. MAPK12 is one of the four p38 MAPKs which play an important role in the cascades of cellular responses evoked by extracellular stimuli such as proinflammatory cytokines or physical stress leading to direct activation of transcription factors such as ELK1 and ATF2. Accordingly, p38 MAPKs phosphorylate a broad range of proteins and it has been estimated that they may have approximately 200 to 300 substrates each. Some of the targets are downstream kinases such as MAPKAPK2, which are activated through phosphorylation and further phosphorylate additional targets.