Control of the ERK MAP kinase cascade by Ras and Raf

Abstract

Activation of ERKs plays a central part in the control of cell proliferation. In this chapter, we have concentrated on the identification and regulation of the kinases that activate Mek. We have chosen to focus on this area because of the many puzzles associated with it. Key issues for the future are the need to derive methods to determine what contribution each individual activator makes to both the magnitude and duration of Mek activation and understanding the mechanisms of regulation. Furthermore, we have considered the roles of Raf and the other kinases solely as Mek activators; they may well have other substrates including cdc25A (Galaktionov et al, 1995), I kappa B (Li and Sedivy, 1993) and TP53 (Jamal and Ziff, 1995).