The unicellular organism Leishmania undergoes apoptosis-like cell death in response to external stress or exposure to antileishmanial agents. Here, we showed that 3-O,28-O-disuccinyl betulin (DiSB), a potent topoisomerase type IB inhibitor, induced parasitic cell death by generating oxidative stress. The characteristic feature of the death process resembled the programmed cell death (PCD) seen ...

The activation of caspase proteases and the targeting of protein substrates act as key steps in the engagement and conduct of apoptosis/programmed cell death. However, the discovery of caspase involvement in diverse non-apoptotic cellular functions strongly suggests that these proteins may have evolved from a core behavior unrelated to the induction of cell death. The presence of similar protea...

BACKGROUND Acanthamoeba castellanii forms a resistant cyst that protects the parasite against the host's immune response. Acanthamoeba Type-I metacaspase (Acmcp) is a caspase-like protein that has been found to be expressed during the encystations. Dictyostelium discoideum is an organism closely related to Acanthamoeba useful for studying the molecular function of this protozoan caspase-like pr...

Monoubiquitination of histone H2B lysine 123 regulates methylation of histone H3 lysine 4 (H3K4) and 79 (H3K79) and the lack of H2B ubiquitination in Saccharomyces cerevisiae coincides with metacaspase-dependent apoptosis. Here, we discovered that loss of H3K4 methylation due to depletion of the methyltransferase Set1p (or the two COMPASS subunits Spp1p and Bre2p, respectively) leads to enhance...