Death Associated Protein Kinase 3 (DAPK3)

Death-associated protein kinase 3 (DAPK3) induces morphological changes in apoptosis when overexpressed in mammalian cells. These results suggest that DAPK3 may play a role in the induction of apoptosis.Saito et al. (1998) systematically screened serine/threonine protein kinases by reverse transcription-PCR with degenerated primers corresponding to the conserved regions of the protein kinase domain. One of the kinase genes identified showed a striking sequence homology to ZIP kinase reported by Kawai et al. (1998). Kawai et al. (1998) reported that the ZIP kinase induced morphologic changes in apoptosis in mammalian cells when overexpressed, suggesting that it plays an important role in the induction of apoptosis. The mRNA was ubiquitously expressed in various tissues.