Signal Transduction
SIGNAL TRANSDUCTION IS THE MEANS BY WHICH CELLULAR COMMUNICATION AND CONTROL IS ACHIEVED
Most of the diseases associated with aging involve defects in proteins involved in cellular regulation. Not surprisingly, the majority of pharmacologically active compounds target signalling proteins. Most of the cytotoxic compounds found in animal venoms and plant toxins specifically affect signal transduction proteins. About 5 percent of the genes in the human genome specify hormones, growth factors and other cytokines involved in cell to cell communications, whereas at least 16 percent specify proteins that transduce signals from these extracellular mediators inside of cells. The discovery of growth factors and other cytokines and the ability to mass-produce recombinant forms of these proteins has spurred the growth of the biotechnology industry over the last four decades. There remains high interest in novel genes that encode secreted proteins for their therapeutic potential. However, intracellular signalling proteins have also commanded the attention of the biopharmaceutical industry over the last two decades.
Signalling proteins coordinate the precise orchestration of metabolism and other cellular processes in response to environmental cues.
They operate within still obscure networks of thousands of different regulatory proteins. These signal transduction networks link receptors for extracellular mediators at the cell surface to appropriate effector responses throughout the cell. Variants of these networks operate in each of the different types of cells in the human body. Through signalling protein networks, different cells monitor their environment and react appropriately to the benefit of the organism, even if this means that individual cells must commit suicide (a process referred to as apoptosis). Real havoc ensues when critical proteins malfunction as a consequence of mutations in the genes that encode them. Over 400 human diseases have been linked to defects in signal transduction pathways. The importance of signal transduction is underscored by the over one hundred thousand researchers in university, industrial, hospital and government laboratories world-wide that are actively investigating cell regulation. Nevertheless, while many of the components in cell signalling networks have now been identified, our knowledge of the architecture of these networks remains rudimentary. There appears to be over 10 million potential connections in cell signalling networks, but less than 30,000 have been elucidated.
Signal Transduction Pathways
Several hundred protein phosphorylation signal transduction pathways have been elucidated over the last 40 years. Many of these can be retrieved from the “Signal Transduction Weblinks” that are provided here. Cell signalling can proceed through sequential protein phosphorylation, but the transient and stable interactions between proteins and their spatial redistributions are other important parameters in understanding how intracellular messages are disseminated in cells. Furthermore, the architecture of a signalling pathway is ...
Several hundred protein phosphorylation signal transduction pathways have been elucidated over the last 40 years. Many of these can be retrieved from the “Signal Transduction Weblinks” that are provided here. Cell signalling can proceed through sequential protein phosphorylation, but the transient and stable interactions between proteins and their spatial redistributions are other important parameters in understanding how intracellular messages are disseminated in cells. Furthermore, the architecture of a signalling pathway is very dependent on the availability of its various possible components in each cell type. Kinexus is seeking to create a high resolution atlas of human cell signalling networks that may one day take into account cell/tissue type, gender, age and health status. Such an ambitious project requires advancements on many fronts. We believe that the accumulation of protein-based information of cell signalling protein levels and phosphorylation status is an important step for such an endeavor. This is why we provide our proteomics services, and why we make much of our results available to the scientific community from our KiNET functional proteomics databank.
With our internal bioinformatics programs, we hope to convert this wealth of data into practical knowledge and understanding of human cell signalling systems. The application of AI has the potential to make this dream a reality.
To assist researchers in improving their knowledge of the complexity of cell signalling, Kinexus is pleased to make freely available signal transduction pathway slides we call “Pathimations” in Microsoft PowerPoint format for non-profit educational purposes. These slides were produced by Dr. Steven Pelech at Kinexus and they are copyrighted for commercial purposes. As signal transduction pathways can be extremely elaborate and complicated, it is often difficult to show all of the relevant connections in a static image. Each “Pathimation” provides a relatively simple conceptual presentation of a key signalling system with a series of connecting slides with build functions so that it is semi-animated. Each frame is annotated with an explanation of the steps in the signalling system depicted. It is possible for users to customize these slides for their own teaching, but they should acknowledge Kinexus visually on each slide
Learn More About Signal Transduction
Host: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, The European Bioinformatics Institute, and The Gene Ontology Consortium
Features: The Reactome project is a curated resource of core pathways and reactions in human biology. The information in this database is authored by biological researchers with expertise in their fields, maintained by the Reactome editorial staff, and cross-referenced with the sequence databases at NCBI, Ensembl and UniProt, the UCSC Genome Browser , HapMap, KEGG (Gene and Compound ), ChEBI, PubMed and GO. In addition to curated human events, inferred orthologous events in 22 non-human species are also available.