Dimerization-induced allostery in protein kinase regulation

•Dimerization regulates the activation of RAF, eIF2α, EGFR, and other kinase families.•Dimerization of the kinase domain realigns the hydrophobic spines and allosterically repositions helix αC.•Pseudokinases use their conserved dimerization surface to influence the activity of their paralogous kinase counterparts. The ability of protein kinases to switch between inactive and active states is critical to control the outputs of cellular signaling pathways. In several protein kinases, the conformation of helix αC is a key hub on which regulatory inputs converge to induce catalytic switching. An emerging mechanism involved in regulating helix αC orientation is the allosteric coupling with kinase domain surfaces involved in homo- or heterodimerization. In this review, we discuss dimerization-mediated regulation of the rapidly accelerated fibrosarcoma (RAF) and eIF2α kinase families and draw parallels with the analogous behavior of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and serine/threonine-protein kinase endoribonuclease 1 (IRE1)/ribonuclease L (RNAse L) kinase families. Given that resistance to RAF-targeted therapeutics often stems from dimerization-dependent mechanisms, we suggest that a better understanding of dimerization-induced allostery may assist in developing alternate therapeutic strategies.