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Abstract
The STe20-Related ADapter (STRAD) pseudokinases are highly evolutionarily conserved regulators of the protein kinase LKB1, but the roles of the vertebrate paralogs STRADα and STRADβ in the developing nervous system are not fully defined, nor is it known whether they serve distinct functions given their high degree of homology. Our phylogenetic analysis indicates that STRADα is the primal STRAD gene with STRADβ appearing following a gene duplication event solely in vertebrate species. The discovery and description of a hereditary developmental epilepsy syndrome known as Polyhydramnios, Megalencephaly, and Symptomatic Epilepsy (PMSE) Syndrome caused by homozygous deletion of part of the STRADα gene indicates that this family of proteins plays a key role in development. I conducted biochemical and genetic analyses to better understand the contribution of the STRAD pseudokinases to vertebrate brain patterning.