Cell Signaling Technology  Overview: Regulation of Apoptosis
Overview: Regulation of Apoptosis  highlighted node  Pathway
Description:  Apoptosis is a regulated cellular suicide
mechanism characterized by nuclear condensation, cell shrinkage,
membrane blebbing, and DNA fragmentation. Caspases, a family of
cysteine proteases, are the central regulators of apoptosis.
Initiator caspases (including caspase-2, -8, -9, -10, -11, and
-12) are closely coupled to pro-apoptotic signals. Once
activated, these caspases cleave and activate downstream
effector caspases (including caspase-3, -6, and -7), which in
turn execute apoptosis by cleaving cellular proteins following
specific Asp residues. Activation of Fas and TNFR by FasL and
TNF, respectively, leads to the activation of caspase-8 and -10.
DNA damage induces the expression of PIDD, which binds to RAIDD
and caspase-2 and leads to the activation of caspase-2.
Cytochrome c released from damaged mitochondria is coupled to
the activation of caspase-9. XIAP inhibits c