※ DAPK family introduction

    DAPK (Death-associated protein kinase) belong to the CAMK family. DAPK contains DAPK1, DAPK, Zipper interacting kinase (ZIPK, also named DAPK-3), DAP kinase related apoptosis inducing protein kinase DRAK1 and DRAK2. They share a highly conserved catalytic domain and diverse extracatalytic domainsm which associated with different functions. DAPK proteins are activated downstream of a variety of cell signaling pathway. And then induce cell death via p53 or p53-independent induced apoptosis, and also via autophagy and membrane blebbing induced cell death. In addition, death signal can also stimuli the DAPK cascade signaling pathway and finally induce cell death (1).

Reference
1. Lin, Y., Hupp, T.R. and Stevens, C. (2010) Death-associated protein kinase (DAPK) and signal transduction: additional roles beyond cell death. FEBS J, 277, 48-57. PMID: 19878313