Frontiers in Bioscience-Landmark (FBL) is published by IMR Press from Volume 26 Issue 5 (2021). Previous articles were published by another publisher on a subscription basis, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement with Frontiers in Bioscience.
The serine/threonine kinase, Akt, also known as PKB (Protein Kinase B) is one important signal transduction pathway that mediates the delay of neutrophil apoptosis caused by inflammatory mediators. Proteins controlled by the PKB/Akt pathway have been reported to prevent or reverse apoptotic-signaling pathways and regulate cell survival. In this review we discuss the role of PKB/Akt activation in the regulation of neutrophil activation during inflammation, and the importance of resolving the inflammatory response by inhibiting PKB/Akt activation and neutrophil survival. Furthermore, we introduce the concept of a dynamic Akt signal complex that is altered when an extracellular signal is initiated such that changes in protein-protein interactions within the Akt signal complex regulates Akt activity and cell survival. Various substrates of PKB/Akt as well as positive and negative regulators of PKB/Akt activation are discussed which in turn inhibit or enhance cellular survival.