Apoptosis of retinal capillary cells begins early in diabetes and likely contributes to the capillary obliteration that is an important feature of diabetic retinopathy. Caspases are proteolytic enzymes that are closely involved in the induction and execution phases of apoptosis, but their role in the development of diabetic retinopathy has not been studied previously. Our study focused on the m...

Decision-making between life and death is one of the most important tasks of cells to maintain their genetic integrity. While the surviving mechanism is driven by Beclin1-dependent autophagy, the suicide processes are controlled by caspases-mediated apoptosis. Interestingly, both these processes share regulators such as Bcl2 and influence each other through feedback loops. The physiological rel...

(Cell 146, 633–644; August 19, 2011) In theDiscussionof theabovearticle,weneglected tociteChaffer et al. (2011),who recently identifiedplasticity in cancercell populations inwhich non-stemcancer cells cangive rise to cancer stem-like cells. Their findings, togetherwithour analysesof breast cancer cell lines and their ability to regenerate equilibrium populations of stem and non-stem cells, esta...

introduction: repetitive cortical spreading depression (csd) can lead to cell death in immature brain tissue. caspases are involved in neuronal cell death in several csd-related neurological disorders. yet, whether repetitive csd itself can induce caspase activation in adult or juvenile tissue remains unknown. inducing repetitive csd in somatosensory cortices of juvenile and adult rats in vivo,...

The activity of ICE-like proteases or caspases is essential for apoptosis. Multiple caspases participate in apoptosis in mammalian cells but how many caspases are involved and what is their relative contribution to cell death is poorly understood. To identify caspases activated in apoptotic cells, we developed an approach to simultaneously detect multiple active caspases. Using tumor cells as a...