NCK1

Cytoplasmic protein NCK1 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the NCK1 gene.

Gene

The Nck (non-catalytic region of tyrosine kinase adaptor protein 1) belongs to the adaptor family of proteins. The nck gene was initially isolated from a human melanoma cDNA library using a monoclonal antibody produced against the human melanoma-associated antigen. The Nck family has two known members in human cells (Nck-1/Nckalpha and NcK2/NcKbeta), two in mouse cells (mNckalpha and mNckbeta/Grb4) and one in drosophila (Dock means dreadlocks-ortholog).

The two murine gene products exhibit 68% amino acid identity to one another, with most of the sequence variation being located to the linker regions between the SH3 and SH2 domains, and are 96% identical to their human counterparts. While human nck-1 gene has been localised to the 3q21 locus of chromosome 3, the nck-2 gene can be found on chromosome 2 at the 2q12 locus.

Function

The protein encoded by this gene is one of the signaling and transforming proteins containing Src homology 2 and 3 (SH2 and SH3) domains. It is located in the cytoplasm and is an adaptor protein involved in transducing signals from receptor tyrosine kinases to downstream signal recipients such as RAS.