PAK2

Chr 3q29

p21 (RAC1) activated kinase 2

Aliases:: PAK65, PAKgamma
MANE:: ENST00000327134.7

OMIM: 605022 ↗NCBI: 5062 ↗Ensembl ↗

Annotations refreshed 9 hours ago.

Predicted protein structure

AlphaFold predicted structure

PAK2 · Q13177

v62025-08-01

Predicted Aligned Error matrix for PAK2 — diagonal shows residue index, colour shows pairwise prediction confidence (lower is better) — Predicted Aligned Error

Mean pLDDT

74.6/ 100

Confident

524 residues

Confidence breakdown

Very high(≥ 90)45%
Confident(70–90)22%
Low(50–70)6%
Very low(< 50)28%

Open interactive 3D viewer

AlphaFold (Jumper et al., 2021) · CC BY 4.0

Clinical relevance (Genomics England PanelApp)

Diagnostic Grade (Green)

Fetal anomalies
MONOALLELIC, autosomal or pseudoautosomal, NOT imprinted
Early onset or syndromic epilepsy
MONOALLELIC, autosomal or pseudoautosomal, NOT imprinted
Retinal disorders
MONOALLELIC, autosomal or pseudoautosomal, NOT imprinted

Disease associations (Open Targets)

Knobloch syndrome 2
0.52
Knobloch syndrome
0.45
Knobloch syndrome 1
0.38
HIV infectious disease
0.37
ovarian carcinoma
0.17
atrial fibrillation
0.14
cancer
0.10
gastric cancer
0.10
breast cancer
0.10
familial pancreatic carcinoma
0.09

Score is the Open Targets composite evidence score (0-1). Higher = stronger gene-disease association.

Protein function (UniProt)

Serine/threonine-protein kinase PAK 2

Serine/threonine protein kinase that plays a role in a variety of different signaling pathways including cytoskeleton regulation, cell motility, cell cycle progression, apoptosis or proliferation (PubMed:12853446, PubMed:16617111, PubMed:19273597, PubMed:19923322, PubMed:33693784, PubMed:7744004, PubMed:9171063). Acts as a downstream effector of the small GTPases CDC42 and RAC1 (PubMed:7744004). Activation by the binding of active CDC42 and RAC1 results in a conformational change and a subsequent autophosphorylation on several serine and/or threonine residues (PubMed:7744004). Full-length PAK2 stimulates cell survival and cell growth (PubMed:7744004). Phosphorylates MAPK4 and MAPK6 and activates the downstream target MAPKAPK5, a regulator of F-actin polymerization and cell migration (PubMed:21317288). Phosphorylates JUN and plays an important role in EGF-induced cell proliferation (PubMed:21177766). Phosphorylates many other substrates including histone H4 to promote assembly of H3.3 and H4 into nucleosomes, BAD, ribosomal protein S6, or MBP (PubMed:21724829). Phosphorylates CASP7, thereby preventing its activity (PubMed:21555521, PubMed:27889207). Additionally, associates with ARHGEF7 and GIT1 to perform kinase-independent functions such as spindle orientation control during mitosis (PubMed:19273597, PubMed:19923322). On the other hand, apoptotic stimuli such as DNA damage lead to caspase-mediated cleavage of PAK2, generating PAK-2p34, an active p34 fragment that translocates to the nucleus and promotes cellular apoptosis involving the JNK signaling pathway (PubMed:12853446, PubMed:16617111, PubMed:9171063). Caspase-activated PAK2 phosphorylates MKNK1 and reduces cellular translation (PubMed:15234964)