※ PRL family introduction

    Phosphatases of regenerating liver known as PRL family belong to DUSP family. PRL contains three family members PRL-1, PRL-2 and PRL-3. The N-terminal catalytic domain of PRL contains a CXXXXXR motif which is critical feature in tyrosine phosphatase responsible for catalytic activity. In addition, all PRL members contain a COOH-terminal CAAX motif and they can be post-translationally farnesylated, which suggests that PRL localize to membrane structures.PRL-3 is expressed in heart and PRL-1 and PRL-2 are expressed ubiquitously in various tissues which indicate that PRL members are involved in varieties of functions. PRL family plays an important role in proliferation and transforms nontumorigenic immortalized cell lines. In addition, PRLs also play a key role in metastasis and control cell cycle. What's more, PRLs are highly expressed in several tumor tissues and cell lines, which might suggests they correlate with some disease (1).

Reference
1. 1. Camps, M., Nichols, A. and Arkinstall, S. (2000) Dual specificity phosphatases: a gene family for control of MAP kinase function. FASEB J, 14, 6-16. PMID: 10627275