Background: The effect of Astragalus has been recognized in traditional Chinese medicine, and the roots are believed to have anti-cancer properties. This study investigated effects ethanolic extract polysaccharide fraction ovinus on MCF7 cell line. Methods: We used MTT assay evaluate cytotoxicity A. roots. status cycle apoptosis were examined, using flow cytometry. gene expressions related extr...

Studies were designed to examine the expression and activity of four caspases that contribute to the initial (caspases-2, -8, and -9) and final (caspase-3) events in apoptosis in the rat corpus luteum (CL) during pregnancy (days 7, 17, 19, and 21 of gestation), postpartum (days 1 and 4), and after injection (0, 8, 16, 24, and 36 h) of the physiological luteolysin PGF2alpha. In addition, the tem...

Caspases are an extended family of cysteine proteases that play critical roles in apoptosis. Animals deficient in caspases-2 or -3, which share very similar tetrapeptide cleavage specificities, exhibit very different phenotypes, suggesting that the unique features of individual caspases may account for distinct regulation and specialized functions. Recent studies demonstrate that unique apoptot...

Caspases are crucial mediators of apoptosis, a form of physiological cell death. Their activation is carefully controlled by a philogenetically conserved death program, which is indispensable for the homeostasis and development of higher organisms. Dysregulation of apoptosis contributes to the pathogenesis of many human diseases. As effectors of the apoptotic machinery, caspases are considered ...

Apoptosis in response to developmental cues and stress stimuli is mediated by caspases that are regulated by the Bcl-2 protein family. Although caspases 2 and 9 have each been proposed as the apical caspase in that pathway, neither is indispensable for the apoptosis of leukocytes or fibroblasts. To investigate whether these caspases share a redundant role in apoptosis initiation, we generated c...

Caspases form a family of proteinases required for the initiation and execution phases of apoptosis. Distinct proapoptotic stimuli lead to activation of the initiator caspases-8 and -9, which in turn activate the common executioner caspases-3 and -7 by proteolytic cleavage. Whereas crystal structures of several active caspases have been reported, no three-dimensional structure of an uncleaved c...

Apoptosis may be regulated by oxidants such as peroxynitrite (ONOO(-)). The tumour suppressor, p53, has been reported to play a crucial role in apoptosis induced by oxidants, therefore we assessed the ability of a ONOO(-) donor, GEA 3162, to activate caspases and induce mitochondrial permeability in a p53-deficient murine bone marrow cell line, Jaws II. Furthermore, these cells were stably tran...

The regulation of cell death has been investigated in a number of clinical disorders including renal ischemic and toxic acute renal failure. Caspases play a crucial role in the execution or final phase of cell death by cleaving and inactivating various structural and functional intracellular proteins that are essential for cell survival and proliferation. Evidence is now emerging to implicate t...

Abstract Caspases play important roles in cell death, differentiation, and proliferation. Due to their high homology, especially of the active site, specific targeting of a particular caspase using substrate analogues is very difficult. Although commercially available small molecules based on peptides are lacking high specificity due to overlapping cleavage motives between different caspases, t...

Apoptosis, a major form of programmed cell death, is an important mechanism to remove extra or unwanted cells during development. In tissue homeostasis apoptosis also acts as a monitoring machinery to eliminate damaged cells in response to environmental stresses. During these processes, caspases, a group of proteases, have been well defined as key drivers of cell death. However, a wealth of evi...