MAP3K5 and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: Previous studies have shown that ASK1 is activated by various stresses, including oxidative stress, endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and calcium influx and ASK family proteins play key roles in cancer, cardiovascular diseases and neurodegenerative diseases where it regulates cell growth in variety of cell types (29–35) of which oxidative stress is found to be elevated in COPD patients (16).