One of the key processes hindering the efficiency of oil palm tissue culture is its poor embryogenesis rate and therefore efforts to pursue improvements in this area remain essential. EgPK1, a homolog of the mammalian STK16, was isolated from oil palm embryogenic suspension cultures through cold plaque screening. Upregulation of EgPK1 transcripts was observed in embryogenic calli relative to its non-embryogenic counterpart. Quantitative PCR also demonstrated similar results. A 5’RACE fragment was found to be different from the original EgPK1 sequence, with the variation unique to the first 115 nucleotides at the 5’region, suggesting alternative splicing events. Quantitative PCR analyses suggested that expression profiles of the variants across different developmental stages were similar to each other. As hypothesized in the mammalian systems, EgPK1 may serve a similar role in disruption of the extracellular matrix surrounding the proembryogenic masses during somatic embryogenesis.