Phosphorylation of IRAK-1 is due to three sequential phosphorylation steps, which leads to full or hyper-phopshorylation of IRAK1. Under in vitro conditions these are all autophosphorylation events. First, Thr-209 is phosphorylated resulting in a conformational change of the kinase domain. Next, Thr-387 in the activation loop is phosphorylated, leading to full enzymatic activity. Several additional residues are phosphorylated in the proline-, serine-, and threonine-rich (ProST) region between the N-terminal death domain and kinase domain. Hyperphosphorylation of this region leads to dissociation of IRAK1 from the activated receptor complex. The kinase activity of IRAK1 is dispensable for IL1-induced NFkB and MAP kinase activation (Knop & Martin, 1999), unlike that of IRAK4 (Suzuki et al. 2002; Kozicak-Holbro et al. 2007), It has been suggested that IRAK1 primarily acts as an adaptor for TRAF6 (Conze et al. 2008).