The Ras-extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK) cascade is a critical intracellular signaling pathway that regulates growth, survival, and differentiation. Previous work established that Ras-GTP binds to, and facilitates the activation of, the protein kinase Raf-1. Recently, it was demonstrated that the cation diffusion facilitator (CDF) proteins are involved in Ras-ERK signaling by use of a Caenorhabditis elegans genetic screen that identified suppressors of activated Ras. In the current work, we demonstrate that CDF proteins may function downstream of Ras, but upstream of Raf-1 in Xenopus oocytes. We also show that the C. elegans protein CDF-1 and its mammalian homologue ZnT-1 bind to the amino-terminal regulatory portion of Raf-1 and promote the biological and enzymatic activity of Raf-1. Furthermore, we show that Zn 2؉ inhibits Raf-1 binding to ZnT-1. We propose a model in which CDF protein binding facilitates Raf-1 activation.The Raf-1 protein kinase plays an important role in signal transduction in eukaryotic cells (1-3). Raf-1 is a member of a multigene family that includes A-Raf and B-Raf. Raf family members regulate cell proliferation and differentiation, and are also involved in the pathogenesis of many forms of human cancer. A recent study found that mutations in B-Raf are present in 66% of human melanomas, highlighting the importance of this gene family (4).When active, Raf-1 phosphorylates and activates MEK1, 1 a protein threonine and tyrosine kinase that, in turn, phosphorylates and activates the mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) family members ERK1 and -2 (hereafter called ERK) (5-7). Raf-1 activation is a highly complex and incompletely understood process. Although the three-dimensional x-ray crystallographic structure of Raf-1 has not been solved, a widely accepted model is that that amino-terminal portion of Raf-1 folds over the carboxyl-terminal half to inhibit its kinase activity (8). 14-3-3 dimers may stabilize the inactive conformation of Raf-1 by interacting simultaneously with phosphoserine 259 and phosphoserine 621 of inactive Raf-1 (9 -13). Inactive Raf-1 is also bound to several heat shock proteins that may prevent the proteasome-mediated degradation of Raf-1 and facilitate its cytoplasmic localization (14, 15).The Ras family of small GTPases plays a key role in the activation of . When bound to GTP, Ras binds to two domains on Raf-1, the Ras-binding domain comprising amino acids 51-131, and the cysteine-rich domain (CRD) comprising amino acids 139 -184 (19 -21). Recently, Morrison's group demonstrated that protein phosphatase 2A dephosphorylates phosphoserine 259 of Raf-1 to release 14-3-3 and promote Ras-GTP binding to the CRD in growth factor-stimulated cells (22). By binding to Raf-1, Ras also promotes the plasma membrane localization of Raf-1. Therefore, Ras-GTP facilitates Raf-1 translocation and activation. However, Ras-GTP is not sufficient in most cases to fully activate Raf-1. First, several phosphorylation events occur at the plasma membrane, which facilitate activ...