A better understanding of cellular mechanisms that occur in Parkinson's disease and related Lewy body diseases is essential for development of new therapies. We previously found that 6-hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) elicits sustained extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) activation that contributes to neuronal cell death in vitro. As subcellular localization of activated kinases affect accessib...

We have explored the possible role of dual specificity phosphatases (DUSPs) on acute EGF-mediated ERK signalling using high content imaging and a delayed MEK inhibition protocol to distinguish direct and indirect effects of the phosphatases on ERK activity. Using siRNAs, we were unable to find evidence that any of the MAPK phosphatases (MKPs) expressed in HeLa cells acts directly to dephosphory...

The ERK (extracellular-signal regulated-kinase)/MAPK (mitogen-activated protein kinase) pathway can regulate transcription, proliferation, migration and apoptosis. The small DED (death-effector domain) protein PEA-15 (phosphoprotein enriched in astrocytes-15) binds ERK and targets it to the cytoplasm. Other DED-containing proteins including cFLIP and DEDD can also regulate signal transduction e...

Mitogenic regulation by caveolin-2 in response to insulin was investigated. Insulin triggered phosphorylation of caveolin-2 on tyrosine 19. Insulin increased the interaction between pY19-caveolin-2 and phospho-ERK, and that interaction was inhibited by a MEK inhibitor U0126. Insulin-induced interaction of caveolin-2 with phospho-ERK was prevented when tyrosine 19 is mutated to alanine. Insulin ...

We tested the hypothesis that VEGF regulates endothelial hyperpermeability to macromolecules by activating the ERK-1/2 MAPK pathway. We also tested whether PKC and nitric oxide (NO) mediate VEGF-induced increases in permeability via the ERK-1/2 pathway. FITC-Dextran 70 flux across human umbilical vein endothelial cell monolayers served as an index of permeability, whereas Western blots assessed...

PURPOSE Retinal injury induces Müller cell dedifferentiation by activating extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) signaling. Stimulation of α2-adrenergic receptors protects against injury but also activates ERK in Müller cells. The purpose of this work was to study the effect of α2-adrenergic signaling on injury-induced ERK and Müller cell dedifferentiation. We tested the hypothesis that α...

OBJECTIVES Phosphorylated extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) activates cell survival pathways and may promote tumor cell proliferation. The purpose of this study was to determine the level of phospho-ERK staining in pretreatment specimens, and the effect of a short course of radiation therapy (RT) on the levels of phospho-ERK in specimens of colorectal cancer. METHODS Specimens of co...

BACKGROUND The ERK family of MAP kinase plays a critical role in growth factor-stimulated cell-cycle progression from G0/G1 to S phase. It has been suggested that sustained activation, but not transient activation, of ERK is necessary for inducing S phase entry. Although the essential role of ERK MAP kinase in growth factor-stimulated gene expression, especially expression of immediate-early ge...

The signalling pathways that link G-protein-coupled receptors to mitogen-activated protein kinases involve receptor and non-receptor tyrosine kinases and protein kinase C (PKC). We explored the pathways that are implicated in the thromboxane (TX) A(2)-dependent activation of extracellular-signal-regulated protein kinase (ERK) and the role of the two TX receptor (TP) isoforms, TP alpha and TP be...

We investigated a physiological role for ERK, a member of the MAPK family, in the hypotonic stimulation of epithelial Na(+) channel (ENaC)-mediated Na(+) reabsorption in renal epithelial A6 cells. We show that hypotonic stress causes a major dephosphorylation of ERK following a rapid transient phosphorylation. PD98059 (a MEK inhibitor) increases dephosphorylated ERK and enhances the hypotonic-s...