5'-AMP-activated protein kinase catalytic subunit alpha-1 is an
enzyme
An enzyme () is a protein that acts as a biological catalyst by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrate (chemistry), substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different mol ...
that in humans is encoded by the ''PRKAA1''
gene
In biology, the word gene has two meanings. The Mendelian gene is a basic unit of heredity. The molecular gene is a sequence of nucleotides in DNA that is transcribed to produce a functional RNA. There are two types of molecular genes: protei ...
.
The protein encoded by this gene belongs to the
serine/threonine protein kinase family. It is the catalytic subunit of the 5'-prime-AMP-activated protein kinase (
AMPK). AMPK is a cellular energy sensor conserved in all eukaryotic cells. The kinase activity of AMPK is activated by the stimuli that increase the cellular
AMP/
ATP ratio. AMPK regulates the activities of a number of key metabolic enzymes through
phosphorylation
In biochemistry, phosphorylation is described as the "transfer of a phosphate group" from a donor to an acceptor. A common phosphorylating agent (phosphate donor) is ATP and a common family of acceptor are alcohols:
:
This equation can be writ ...
. It protects cells from stresses that cause ATP depletion by switching off ATP-consuming biosynthetic pathways.
Alternatively spliced transcript variants encoding distinct
isoforms have been observed.
A recent study proposes a role in the metastatic cascade and phenotype determination of pancreatic cancer.
Interactions
Protein kinase, AMP-activated, alpha 1 has been shown to
interact with
TSC2.
References
Further reading
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External links
PDBe-KBprovides an overview of all the structure information available in the PDB for Human 5'-AMP-activated protein kinase catalytic subunit alpha-1 (PRKAA1)
EC 2.7.11
{{gene-5-stub