Protein Kinase Regulation and GTPase Signaling

Cells relay external signals into internal decisions—whether to grow, move, or divide—through cascading chains of proteins that switch each other on and off by transferring phosphate groups or toggling between active and inactive states bound to GTP or GDP. At the center of this machinery sit the Ras GTPases and the protein kinases they recruit, whose coordinated activity also draws in calcium release and phospholipase C to fine-tune the response across multiple cellular compartments. Mutations that lock these switches in the "on" position are among the most common drivers of human cancer, making the precise molecular details of how signals propagate, amplify, and terminate both a fundamental biological question and a direct therapeutic target. Researchers are actively working to understand how cells achieve specificity—why the same core proteins produce different outcomes in different cell types—and how resistance to kinase-targeted drugs emerges, often through rewiring of the same pathways that therapies attempt to block.

Works

60,895

Total citations

1,835,776

Keywords

Ras SignalingProtein KinasesGTPasesCell RegulationCancer TherapyCalcium Signaling