Death-associated protein kinase (DAPK) and signal transduction: additional roles beyond cell death

Death-associated protein kinase (DAPK) is a stress-regulated protein kinase that mediates a range of processes, including signal-induced cell death and autophagy. Although the kinase domain of DAPK has a range of substrates that mediate its signalling, the additional protein interaction domains of DAPK are relatively ill defined. This review will summarize our current knowledge of the DAPK interactome, the use of peptide aptamers to define novel protein-protein interaction motifs, and how these new protein-protein interactions give insight into DAPK functions in diverse cellular processes, including growth factor signalling, the regulation of autophagy, and its emerging role in the regulation of immune responses.