MAPK8 and cancer: For instance, suppression of TAK1 is required to promote prostate cancer tumorgenesis [37], while activation of TAK1 leads to hepatocyte apoptosis in liver cancer through activation of JNK signaling and NF-κB-independent function of NEMO, indicating that TAK1 is a tumor suppressor in some subtypes of human cancers [14, 37, 38].