Extracellular phosphate plays a key role in growth plate maturation by inducing Erk1/2 (Mapk3/1) phosphorylation, leading to hypertrophic chondrocyte apoptosis. The Raf kinases induce Mek1/2 (Map2k1/2) and Erk1/2 phosphorylation; however, a role for Raf kinases in endochondral bone formation has not been identified. Ablation of both A-Raf (Araf) and B-Raf (Braf) in chondrocytes does not alter g...

Establishing a higher classification of bees based on morphology alone can fail to capture evolutionary relationships when morphological characters either vary very little between distantly related groups, or conversely greatly closely species. This problem is well represented in the subfamily Panurginae, for which recent global revision phylogenomic data unexpectedly revealed that two Old Worl...