Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a clinical approach that utilizes light-activated drugs for the treatment of a variety of pathologic conditions. The initiating events of PDT-induced apoptosis are poorly defined. It has been shown for other proapoptotic stimuli that the integral endoplasmic reticulum protein Bap31 is cleaved by caspases 1 and 8, but not by caspase-3. Further, a 20 kDa Bap31 cleava...

Ceramides are essential precursors of sphingolipids with a dual role as mediators of apoptotic cell death. Previous work revealed that the ER-resident ceramide phosphoethanolamine (CPE) synthase SMSr/SAMD8 is a suppressor of ceramide-mediated apoptosis in cultured cells. Anti-apoptotic activity of SMSr requires a catalytically active enzyme but also relies on the enzyme's N-terminal sterile α-m...

The evidence that regular physical exercise reduces the risk of developing cancer is well described. However, interaction between and not fully clarified yet. Several myokines released by skeletal muscle appear to have a direct anti-tumour function. There are few data on myokine secretion after in patients with advanced tumours. Pancreatic (PC) very aggressive usually fatal cancer. To investiga...

Bid is a proapoptotic Bcl-2 family protein, which on activation translocates to mitochondria and induces damage to the organelles. Activation of Bid depends on its proteolytic processing into truncated forms of tBid. Bid is highly expressed in the kidneys; however, little is known about its role in renal pathophysiology. In this study, we initially examined Bid activation in cultured rat kidney...

Caspase-3 plays a critical role in a proteolytic cascade within the apoptosis signal pathway; this enzyme is commonly activated by numerous death signals and cleaves a variety of important cellular proteins. Using caspase-3-deficient MCF7 cells and clones stably transfected with the caspase-3 gene (MCF7/Casp3), we evaluated the role of caspase-3 in Bax-induced apoptosis. Bax overexpression indu...

p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase is activated and involved in cleavage of caspase-3 during apoptosis induced by a number of stimuli. However, the signaling events triggered by p38 that result in caspase-3 activation are still unknown. In human leukemia cells, two reactive oxygen species, singlet oxygen and hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)), selectively stimulated the phosphorylation of p38. Prei...

The neurodegenerative disorder spinocerebellar ataxia type 7 (SCA7) is caused by a polyglutamine (polyQ) expansion in the ataxin-7 protein, categorizing SCA7 as one member of a large class of heritable neurodegenerative proteinopathies. Cleavage of ataxin-7 by the protease caspase-7 has been demonstrated in vitro, and the accumulation of proteolytic cleavage products in SCA7 patients and mouse ...

MOTIVATION The caspase family of cysteine proteases play essential roles in key biological processes such as programmed cell death, differentiation, proliferation, necrosis and inflammation. The complete repertoire of caspase substrates remains to be fully characterized. Accordingly, systematic computational screening studies of caspase substrate cleavage sites may provide insight into the subs...

Apoptosis contributes, with necrosis, to the cardiac cell loss after ischemia/reperfusion injury. The apoptotic cascade is initiated either by mitochondrial damage and activation of caspase-9 or by death receptor ligation and activation of caspase-8. In the present study, performed in the isolated rat heart exposed either to ischemia alone or ischemia followed by reperfusion, cleavage of caspas...

Caspase-2 is an evolutionarily conserved caspase, yet its biological function and cleavage targets are poorly understood. Caspase-2 is activated by the p53 target gene product PIDD (also known as LRDD) in a complex called the Caspase-2-PIDDosome. We show that PIDD expression promotes growth arrest and chemotherapy resistance by a mechanism that depends on Caspase-2 and wildtype p53. PIDD-induce...