Isolation of a New PAK1 Gene from Sea Cucumber (Apostichopus japonicus) and Its Expression Analysis and Function Characterization

The p21-activated kinase 1 (PAK1) is a downstream serine/threonine kinase effector of Rac1/Cdc42 that regulates various biological processes including those associating with pathological inflammation. To investigate the function of PA K 1 in echinoderms, we isolated a new PA K 1 from sea cucumber Apostichopus japonicus (AjPAK1) by transcriptome database mining and with rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE). The full-length cDNA AjPAK1 was...