Application | Comment | Organism |
---|---|---|
medicine | ZPK/DLK can become a strategic therapeutic target in motor neuron diseases in which aberrant activation of the apoptogenic cascade is involved | Mus musculus |
Protein Variants | Comment | Organism |
---|---|---|
additional information | ZPK/DLK-deficient mice are derived from the gene-trap embryonic stem cell clone RRN366 | Mus musculus |
Organism | UniProt | Comment | Textmining |
---|---|---|---|
Mus musculus | Q60700 | - |
- |
Source Tissue | Comment | Organism | Textmining |
---|---|---|---|
nerve | the enzyme is most abundantly expressed in developing nervous tissues | Mus musculus | - |
Synonyms | Comment | Organism |
---|---|---|
DLK | - |
Mus musculus |
MAP3K12 | - |
Mus musculus |
MUK | - |
Mus musculus |
ZPK | - |
Mus musculus |
ZPK/DLK | - |
Mus musculus |
General Information | Comment | Organism |
---|---|---|
evolution | the enzyme is a member of the MLK family | Mus musculus |
malfunction | mice deficient in ZPK have twice as many spinal motoneurons as do their wild-type littermates. Nuclear HB9/MNX1-positive motoneuron pools are generated similarly in the spinal cord of both ZPK/DLK-deficient and wild-type embryos. Significantly less apoptotic motoneurons are found in ZPK/DLK-deficient embryos compared to wild-type embryos, resulting in retention of excess numbers of motoneurons after birth. The excess motoneurons remain viable without atrophic changes in the ZPK/DLK-deficient mice surviving into adulthood. Analysis of the diaphragm and the phrenic nerve reveals that clustering and innervation of neuromuscular junctions are indistinguishable between ZPK/DLK-deficient and wild-type mice, whereas the proximal portion of the phrenic nerve of ZPK/DLK-deficient mice contain significantly more axons than the distal portion. Some excess ZPK/DLK-deficient motoneurons survive without atrophy despite failure to establish axonal contact with their targets | Mus musculus |
physiological function | activation of mitogen-activated protein kinase pathways is critically involved in naturally occurring programmed cell death of motoneurons during development. Enzyme ZPK, also called DLK, (ZPK/DLK), a mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase, is a critical mediator of programmed cell death of motoneurons. The enzyme has a distinctive role in neural development and in naturally occurring programmed cell death | Mus musculus |