MAPK8 and inflammatory bowel disease: For example, enhanced expression/activity profile of the MAPK family members (p38 MAPK, JNK, and ERK1/2) [27, 46], PI3K [47, 48], and the pro-inflammatory COX-2 [49–52] was observed in the colonic biopsies of IBD patients as well as in different animal models of colitis [25].