Discovery and Role in Cancer
The first raf gene that was found was the oncogene v-raf. Normal (non-oncogenic) cellular homologs of v-raf were soon found to be conserved components of eukaryotic genomes, and it was shown that they could mutate and become oncogenes. A-Raf and B-Raf are two protein kinases with similar sequences to Raf-1. Mutations in B-Raf genes are found in several types of cancer. The Raf kinases are targets for anticancer drug development. There are several quantitative immunochemical methods available to detect Raf kinase inhibiting drugs.
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