Caspase-8: regulating life and death

Controlling caspase activity in life and death

Every day, billions of human cells terminate their normal activities and launch intrinsic suicide pathways. Timely cell death is orchestrated by destructive functions encoded by dying cells, such as caspase proteases in the case of apoptotic or pyroptotic cell death. Caspases cleave specific intracellular substrates to kill and dismantle cells destined for elimination, and their dysregulation l...

Synergistic Effect of Subtoxic-dose Cisplatin and TRAIL to Mediate Apoptosis by Down-regulating Decoy Receptor 2 and Up-regulating Caspase-8, Caspase-9 and Bax Expression on NCI-H460 and A549 Cells

Objective(s): Although tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) can selectively induce apoptosis in tumor cells, more than half of tumors including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) exhibit TRAIL-resistance. The purpose of this study was to determine whether subtoxic-dose cisplatin and TRAIL could synergistically enhance apoptosis on NSCLC cells and investigate its under...

Death wins against life in a spatially extended model of the caspase-3/8 feedback loop

Apoptosis is an important physiological process which enables organisms to remove unwanted or damaged cells. A mathematical model of the extrinsic pro-apoptotic signaling pathway has been introduced by Eissing et al. (2007) and a bistable behavior with a stable death state and a stable life state of the reaction system has been established. In this paper, we consider a spatial extension of the ...

Up-Regulating FLIP by Inhibiting Caspase-8 Processing and Oligodendrocytes from Apoptotic Cell Death C5b-9 Terminal Complex Protects

Caspase-8 regulation of TRAIL-mediated cell death.

Research on TNF-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL) and TRAIL receptors has advanced tremendously over the past 17 years. Initial observations of TRAIL and TRAIL receptor-mediated tumor cell toxicity led to enthusiasm of exploiting this selective, malignant cell killing for cancer therapy. Further examination revealed aberrant TRAIL signaling in some cancer cells leading to protection fro...