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Updated: May 25, 2026

Characterize Disease-related Mutants of RAF Family Kinases by Using a Set of Practical and Feasible Methods
Published on: July 17, 2019
The role of pseudokinases in cancer
Hua Zhang1, Andrew Photiou, Arnhild Grothey
1Department of Cancer and Surgery, Imperial College, Hammersmith Hospital Campus, Du Cane Road, London, W12 ONN, UK.
Abstract:
Kinases play a critical role in regulating many cellular functions including development, differentiation and proliferation. To date, over 518 proteins with kinase activity, comprising ~2-3% of total cellular proteins, have been identified from within the human kinome. Interestingly, approximately 10% of kinases are categorised as pseudokinases since they lack one or more conserved catalytic residues within their kinase domain and were originally thought to have no enzymatic activity. Recently, there has been strong evidence to suggest that some pseudokinsases can not only function as scaffold proteins, but may also possess kinase activity leading to modulation of cell signalling pathways. Altered activity of these pseudokinases can result in impaired cellular function, particularly in malignancies. In this review we are discussing recent evidence that apart from a scaffolding role, pseudokinases also orchestrate cellular processes as active kinases per se in signalling pathways of malignant cells.
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