PKC beta 2: Products

Members of the Protein Kinase C (PKC) family are serine/threonine protein kinases that play a key regulatory role in a number of cellular functions including cell growth and differentiation, hormone secretion, and gene expression. Multiple genes and alternative splicing result in three subfamilies, which differ in their co-factor requirements: conventional PKC isoforms (alpha, beta 1, beta 2, and gamma) which require calcium and phosphatidylserine (PS), diacylglycerol (DAG) or phorbol esters for activation; novel isoforms (delta, epsilon, eta, and theta), which are calcium-independent but are still regulated by PS, DAG, or phorbol esters; and atypical isoforms (iota/lambda and zeta), which are calcium-independent and do not require PS, DAG, or phorbol esters for activation. PKC beta 2 regulation of c-myc expression has been shown to suppress insulin gene transcription in pancreatic beta-cells implicating PKC beta 2 for some of the beta-cell glucose toxicity found in diabetes.