WNK Lysine Deficient Protein Kinase 2 (WNK2)

WNK2 is a cytoplasmic serine-threonine kinase that contains cysteine in place of lysine at the conserved location in subdomain II of protein kinases, yet has kinase activity.WNK2 is a 2,126-amino acid protein of about 230 kD expressed in various cell lines and tissues. WNK2 contains a small N-terminal domain followed by a kinase domain and a long C-terminal tail. The kinase domain has the greatest similarity to the MEKK protein kinase family. However, overexpression of WNK2 in HEK293 cells exerted no detectable effect on the activity of cotransfected mitogen-activated protein kinases, suggesting that it belongs to a distinct pathway. WNK2 is able to phosphorylate the exogenous substrate myelin basic protein as well as itself mostly on serine residues, confirming that it is a serine-threonine kinase.