Identification of a 'genuine' mammalian homolog of nematodal CED-4: is the hunt over or do we need better guns?

摘要

One of the most attractive molecules after which cell death researchers have been chasjng in the last 14 years is a mammalian homolog of nematodal CED-4 that is regulated in exactly the same way as in the worm Caenorhabditis elegans. The reason for this hunt, both by genetic and biochemical approaches, is the still widely shared view that although higher eukaryotes have evolved more complex systems to regulate programmed cell death, the basic principle of how a CED-9-like survival factor regulates a CED-3-like caspase activity via a CED-4-like ATPase must have been conserved from worms to men.