Ras

By Emily Cartwright, PhD

By Christina Towers, PhD

By Christina Towers, PhD

c-Myc, a proto-oncogene, has documented involvement in cellular differentiation, cell growth, cell death and tumor formation.  Target genes of the Myc family include those that participate in cell survival, translation, transcription, metabolism and more.  On a more specific level, c-Myc is a transcription factor that can both activate and repress its target protein by way of DNA modifications.  This allows for the use of a c-Myc antibody in two manners; it can be used to monitor the actual c-Myc protein expression levels, or, it

Nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NFkB) is a protein complex that regulates DNA transcription and is a critical regulator of cell survival. NFkB has long been known as a primer of inflammation, however researchers are now finding that NFkB may also regulate over-inflammation via a novel mitophagy pathway (Minton, 2016).

While not life threatening, blindness and retinal disease are profoundly debilitating and greatly affect quality of life.  Understandably, gene therapy has been subject to controversy given it’s potential effects on the rest of our cellular processes.  However, a genetically diseased eye being an isolated organ quickly becomes a promising prospect for such therapies.  Specifically, RPE antibodies are powerful diagnostic tools to test the viability of these clinical treatments. 

Mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPKs) are important signaling proteins needed to transmit and relay extracellular stimuli and to illicit intracellular responses (1). The MAPK family of proteins are serine/threonine kinases that are able to phosphorylate and activate downstream kinases in a signal cascade that regulates diverse cell responses such as gene expression, metabolism, apoptosis, and differentiation (1). Notable members of the MAPK family include ERK, JNK, and p38 (1).

Caspase 9 (also termed ICE-LAP6, Mch6, Apaf-3) is a member of cysteine protease family of caspases and is encoded by the CASP9 gene in humans. Caspase-9 is involved in mitochondrial apoptosis pathway and is an initiator caspase.

Extracellular Signal-Regulated Kinases (ERK) also known as the Mitogen-activated Protein Kinase (MAPK), MAPK/ERK proteins are a family of protein-serine/threonine kinases that are activated via the phosphorylation of tyrosine. MAPK/ERK are activated by diverse mechanisms.