Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Protein Structure and Molecular Enzymology
ReviewCaspases – controlling intracellular signals by protease zymogen activation
Section snippets
A biological role for intracellular proteolytic signaling
The maintenance of homeostasis in organisms requires a combination of many different pathways that relay specific signals from a stimulus to an effect. Information flow is mediated by specific post-translational modifications through recognition of endogenous proteins, and usually these modifications alter the properties of the protein targets, telling them where to go and what to do. The advantage of utilizing proteases for mediating signals lies in the fact that they produce essentially
Mechanisms of activation
The activation of the caspases can be divided into two different mechanisms known as homo-activation, which requires recruitment of the zymogens to the aforementioned adapter proteins, and hetero-activation, which occurs upon the action of another protease upon the caspase zymogen [11]. Often the latter is the result of the first since the caspases belonging to the activator group are most frequently activated by homo-activation. Apart from regulation by activation there are today also a number
Concluding remarks
As pointed out earlier the primary specificity for Asp is unusual among mammalian proteases, and this hints at an evolutionary explanation. Since the apoptotic response seems to be of fundamental importance to metazoans one can argue that there would be strong selective pressure against other proteases that may develop Asp specificity and inadvertently trigger death. Consequently, it is likely that the caspase substrates required to deliver the classic apoptotic effect have evolved alongside
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