Chapter category: Apoptosis
Caspase Activation at the TNF-R Family Members Death Inducing Signaling Complexes (DISCs)
Caspases: Their Role in Cell Death and Cell Survival
Edited by: Marek Los and Henning WalczakISBN: 0-306-47441-7
» Get more information about this book at landesbioscience.com «
Chapter authors:
Martin R. Sprick and Henning Walczak
During the life span of a multicellular organism most cells die at a certain point. The decision to die serves the common purpose of all cells in such organisms which is self propagation. Multicellular organisms have evolved a system where a single cell either by itself decides to die or where specialized other cells, so-called effector cells, make this decision for a certain cell. They do so when the cell in question is recognized as one that could potentially interfere with the above mentioned common goal. Examples for such potentially dangerous cells are plentiful and include e.g., virally or oncogenically transformed cells. These cells are recognized as such and are therefore killed by the effector cells of immune system. For many years it was unknown how these cells kill their targets and it was only after decades of research that we finally got a glimpse. We now know thatbesides other mechanisms programmed cell death induced by certain members of the tumor necrosis factor (TNF) family is crucial for these targeted cell deletion mechanisms.
Additional chapters from this book:
Other Methods of Caspase Activity Monitoring
Hubert Hug, Christof Burek and Marek Los
Caspases (Cysteine-Aspart-ases) are important effector molecules involved in apoptosis, though some of them can also participate in other physiological processes such as a...
In Situ Activation of Caspases Revealed by Affinity Labeling Their Enzymatic Sites
Jerzy Grabarek and Zbigniew Darzynkiewicz
Activation of caspases is the key event of apoptosis as its initiates irreversible steps of the cell demise.1-9 Several methods, therefore, have been developed to monitor this event...
Caspases as Targets for Drug Development
Manuela Michalke, Anna Stepczynska, Malgorzata Burek, Truc Nguyen Bui, Karin Loser, Krzysztof Krzemieniecki and Marek Los
Controlled cell proliferation, differentiation, activation and cell removal are the key events during the development and existence of multicellular organisms. Proliferating mammalian cells un...
Caspase-Independent Cell Death Mechanisms
Donat Kögel and Jochen H. M. Prehn
Almost 30 years ago, Kerr and co-workers proposed the existence of an intrinsic cell death program and introduced the term apoptosis for the execution of this program.1 Apoptosis is...
Caspase Activation in Cancer Therapy
Simone Fulda and Klaus-Michael Debatin
Different anticancer therapies including cytotoxic drugs, g-irradiation, suicide gene therapy or immunotherapy, appear to induce tumor cell death by activating key e...
Learning from Deficiency: Gene Targeting of Caspases
Timothy S. Zheng
For all multicellular organisms, cell number control is essential for proper organ formation during development, and for cellular homeostatsis in adults.1 Such a critical task requi...
Caspases, Bcl-2 Family Proteins and Other Components of the Death Machinery: Their Role in the Regulation of the Immune Response
Marc Pellegrini and Andreas Strasser
The prime directive of the immune system is to defend the host. The threats can be external in the form of microbial pathogens or internal in the form of rebellious autoreactive or malignant c...
The Role of Caspases in Modulation of Cytokines and other Molecules in Apoptosis and Inflammation
Harald Loppnow, Krzysztof Guzik and Juliusz Pryjma
Caspases are a large family of evolutionary conserved proteases. The first caspase, has been identified as the enzyme necessary for functional maturation of IL-1b.
Virus-Encoded Caspase Inhibitors
Grant McFadden and Richard W. Moyer
There have been many excellent reviews on caspase structure and function16 and key features will only briefly be discussed here to set the framework for our discussion of virus enco...
Modulation of Caspase Activity by Cellular Inhibitors
Klaus W. Wagner, Badry D. Bursulaya and Quinn L. Deveraux
Caspases are key effectors of the apoptosis process, therefore it is not surprising that mammals, as well as other species, evolved molecules that regulate caspases by directly binding and inh...
Mitochondrial/Apoptosome Dependent Activation of Caspases
Kelvin Cain
Many key biological processes, including caspase activation during apoptotic cell death are executed by large multi-protein complexes. Apoptosis can be initiated via death receptors or by pert...
Caspase Activation at the TNF-R Family Members Death Inducing Signaling Complexes (DISCs)
Martin R. Sprick and Henning Walczak
During the life span of a multicellular organism most cells die at a certain point. The decision to die serves the common purpose of all cells in such organisms which is self propagation. Mult...
Caspase Cascades in Apoptosis
Colin Adrain, Emma M. Creagh and Seamus J. Martin
Apoptosis can be thought of as a controlled demolition process that ensures the safe dismantling of cellular structures and removal of the resulting debris such that collateral damage to surro...
The Caspase Family
Mohamed Lamkanfi, Wim Declercq, Bart Depuydt, Michael Kalai, Xavier Saelens and Peter Vandenabeele
Caspases, a family of cysteinyl aspartate-specific proteases, are central mediators of apoptotic and inflammatory pathways. Caspases are synthesized as zymogens with a prodomain of variable length fol...
Apoptosis Dependent and Independent Functions of Caspases
Alicia Algeciras-Schimnich, Bryan C. Barnhart and Marcus E. Peter
The study of cell death in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has led to the identification of several proteins which are responsible for orchestrating cell death. For each of these proteins,...
