Tribbles: a family of kinase-like proteins with potent signalling regulatory function.

The recent identification of tribbles as regulators of signal processing systems and physiological processes, including development, together with their potential involvement in diabetes and cancer, has generated considerable interest in these proteins. Tribbles have been reported to regulate activation of a number of intracellular signalling pathways with roles extending from mitosis and cell activation to apoptosis and modulation of gene expression. The current review summarises our current understanding of interactions between tribbles and various other proteins. Since our understanding on the molecular basis of tribbles function is far from complete, we also describe a bioinformatic analysis of various segments of tribbles proteins, which has revealed a number of highly conserved peptide motifs with potentially important functional roles.