Until today, 14 isoforms of mammalian calpains have been identified, including calpain-5. The C. elegans calpain-5 homologue tra-3 is reported to be essential for necrotic neuronal cell death. In this study, we cloned and characterized rat calpain-5, which is highly homologous to human and mouse sequences. The nucleotide sequence is 87% and 93% identical with human and mouse calpain-5, respecti...

The number of mammalian calpain protease family members has grown to 14 on last count. Overactivation of calpain 1 and calpain 2 (and their small subunit) has long been tied to acute neurological disorders (e.g. stroke and traumatic brain injury) and recently to Alzheimer's disease. Loss-of-function mutations of the calpain 3 gene have now been identified as the cause of limb-girdle muscular dy...

There are evidence that both a disintegrin and metalloproteinase 17 (ADAM17) and calpain are involved in platelet glycoprotein (GP)Ibalpha ectodomain cleavage. However, the relationship between the two enzymes in the shedding process remains unclear. Here we show that calcium ionophore A23187- and alpha-thrombin-induced GPIbalpha shedding is completely inhibited by the metalloproteinase inhibit...

A Chinese hamster ovary cell line (CHOp) was cultured in the presence of benzyloxycarbonyl-Leu-Leu-Tyr diazomethyl ketone (ZLLY-CHN2), to select for resistance to this cell-permeant calpain inhibitor. A clone isolated after several courses of exposure (SHI cells) demonstrated decreased sensitivity to ZLLY-CHN2 toxicity and a decreased growth rate. SHI cells also possessed less mu-calpain isozym...

Chemoattractants induce neutrophil polarization through localized polymerization of F-actin at the leading edge. The suppression of rear and lateral protrusions is required for efficient chemotaxis and involves the temporal and spatial segregation of signaling molecules. We have previously shown that the intracellular calcium-dependent protease calpain is required for cell migration and is invo...

Cell migration on extracellular matrix requires the turnover of integrin-dependent adhesions. The nonreceptor tyrosine kinases Src and FAK regulate focal-adhesion turnover by poorly understood mechanisms. ERK/MAP kinase-mediated activation of the protease Calpain 2 also promotes focal-adhesion turnover; however, it is not known if this is linked to the activities of Src and FAK. Calpain 2 has p...

Human circulating PBMC (peripheral blood mononuclear cells) contain three calpain isoforms distinguishable on the basis of their chromatographic properties. Two of these proteases belong to the ubiquitous calpain subfamily, corresponding to the classical mu- and m-calpain forms. The third, which shows peculiar activating and regulatory properties, is an alternatively spliced calpain 3 (p94) for...

17-Beta-estradiol (E2) is a steroid hormone involved in numerous brain functions. E2 regulates synaptic plasticity in part by enhancing NMDA receptor function and spine density in the hippocampus, resulting in increased long-term potentiation and facilitation of learning and memory. As the calcium-dependent neutral protease, calpain, is also involved in these processes, we tested whether E2 cou...

mu-Calpain and calpain-3 are Ca2+-dependent proteases found in skeletal muscle. Autolysis of calpains is observed using Western blot analysis as the cleaving of the full-length proteins to shorter products. Biochemical assays suggest that mu-calpain becomes proteolytically active in the presence of 2-200 microM Ca2+. Although calpain-3 is poorly understood, autolysis is thought to result in its...

the genotypes for beta-lactoglobulin (blg) and calpastatin (cast) were determined by polymerase chain reaction (pcr) and restriction enzyme digestion and genotyped for calpain (capn) by pcr-sscp method in a native iranian breed sheep, kordi. blood samples were collected from 100 pure bred kordi sheep from kordi breeding station located in shirvan, mashhad. the extraction of genomic dna was base...