Alpha-protein kinase 1 is also called chromosome 4 kinase or lymphocyte alpha-protein kinase (LAK). ALPK1 is implicated in epithelial cell polarity and exocytic vesicular transport towards the apical plasma membrane. It resides on Golgi-derived vesicles where it phosphorylates myosin IA, a motor protein that regulates the delivery of vesicles to the plasma-membrane. It may be associated with inflammation-related diseases such as gout and type 2 diabetes mellitus. ALPK1 contains a C-terminal alpha-kinase domain, an atypical protein kinase catalytic domain with no detectable similarity to conventional protein serine/threonine kinases. The alpha-kinase family was named after the unique mode of substrate recognition by its initial members, the Dictyostelium heavy chain kinases, which targeted protein sequences that adopt an alpha-helical conformation. More recently, alpha-kinases were found to also target residues in non-helical regions.
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