Protein kinase C (PKC) is a family ofserine/threonine protein kinases that plays a central role in transducing extracellular signals into a variety of intracellular responses ranging from cell proliferation to apoptosis.Nine PKC genes have been identified in the human genome,which encode 10 proteins.Each member of this protein kinase family displays distinct biochemical characteristics and is enriched in different cellular and subcellular locations.Activation of PKC has been implicated in the regulation of cell growth and differentiation.This review summarizes works of the past years in the field of PKC biochemistry that covers regulation and activation mechanism of different PKC isoforms.