Mitogen-activated protein kinase 12 (MAPK12)

Serine/threonine kinase which functions as an essential part of the MAP kinase signal transduction pathway. MAPK12 is one of the four p38 MAPKs which play an important role in the cascades of cellular responses evoked by extracellular stimuli such as proinflammatory cytokines or physical stress resulting in direct activation of transcription factors like ELK1 and ATF2.

Accordingly, p38 MAPKs phosphorylate a broad assortment of proteins and it's been estimated that they might have approximately 200 to 300 substrates each. Some of the targets are downstream kinases like MAPKAPK2, which can be activated through phosphorylation and further phosphorylate additional targets.