Our current study showed that penfluridol-induced ERK dephosphorylation and PARP cleavage were significantly reversed by the p38 inhibitor, SB203580 (Additional file 1: Figure S2), suggesting that p38 activation can negatively regulate ERK activity to induce apoptosis in penfluridol-treated AML cells. Here, MAPK14 is linked to acute myeloid leukemia.