The Biology of p21Waf1/Cip1 - Review Paper
- 1 University of Malta, Malta
Abstract
p21WAF1/Cip1 belongs to the Cip/Kip family of cyclin kinase inhibitors (CKI) (p21Waf1/Cip1, p27Kip1, p57Kip1). p21Waf1/Cip1 was first described as a potent and universal inhibitor of cyclin-dependent kinases (Cdks). Two forms of functionally active p21 has been localized and described: a nuclear and a cytoplasmic forms. In this paper the structures of p21 has been described and as well as it functional biology in terms of differentiation, proliferation and apoptotic activities. The upregulation of p21 by p53-dependent and p53-independent mechanisms is also described.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3844/ajbbsp.2006.33.40
Copyright: © 2006 Renald A. Blundell. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
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Keywords
- p21Waf1/Cip1
- p53
- cytoplasmic
- nuclear
- apoptosis
- differentiation
- proliferation