Research progress of protein kinase C-zeta / 中国药理学通报

ABSTRACT

Protein Kinase C-zeta (PKC-ζ) is a new member of protein kinase C family and has some specific characteristics as comparing with the classical PKC. It lacks the C2 domain making its kinase activity Ca2+ -independent, and it possesses only one zinc-finger region in its regulatory domain. Therefore, PKC-ζ does not bind Ca2+ and can not be activated by diacylglycerol or phorbol esters. In addition, many researches showed that PKC-ζ could induce differentiation, mediate insulin-stimulation protein synthesis, activate immunity of human neutrophils, inhibit proliferation of cancer cells and regulate the function of actin cytoskeleton. What is more, PKC-ζ plays an important role in signal transduction of cells, such as mediating MAPK and NF-κB activation.