Apoptosis is essential for the precise regulation of cellular homeostasis and development. The role in vivo of Apaf1, a mammalian homolog of C. elegans CED-4, was investigated in gene-targeted Apaf1-/- mice. Apaf1-deficient mice exhibited reduced apoptosis in the brain and striking craniofacial abnormalities with hyperproliferation of neuronal cells. Apaf1-deficient cells were resistant to a va...

Apaf1 is a critical component of the apoptosome and initiates apoptosis downstream mitochondrial damages. Although the importance of Apaf1 in embryonic development was shown, the role of Apaf1 in immune responses, especially T cell responses, has yet to be elucidated. We generated T cell-specific Apaf1-deficient mice (Lck-Cre-Apaf1f/f mice) and examined the antigen-specific delayed-type hyperse...

Apaf1 has been studied hitherto for its key role in regulating the formation of the apoptotic core machinery, the apoptosome, to induce programmed cell death. Apaf1 involvement in orchestrating this process during embryonic development has been widely documented and constitutes a breakthrough in developmental biology. In this review, we aim to highlight the origin of Apaf1 discoveries and how f...

BACKGROUND Apaf1 (apoptotic protease activating factor 1) is the central component of the apoptosome, a multiprotein complex that activates procaspase-9 after cytochrome c release from the mitochondria in the intrinsic pathway of apoptosis. Other cellular roles, including a pro-survival role, have also been described for Apaf1, while the relative contribution of each function to cell death, but...

p53 is a transcriptional activator which has been implicated as a key regulator of neuronal cell death after acute injury. We have shown previously that p53-mediated neuronal cell death involves a Bax-dependent activation of caspase 3; however, the transcriptional targets involved in the regulation of this process have not been identified. In the present study, we demonstrate that p53 directly ...

Negative selection is a process to delete potentially autoreactive clones in developing thymocytes. Programmed cell death or apoptosis is thought to play an important role in this selection process. In this study, we investigated the role of apoptotic protease-activating factor 1 (Apaf1), a mammalian homologue of CED-4, in programmed cell death during the negative selection in thymus. There was...

The apoptotic protease activating factor 1 (Apaf1) is the main component of the apoptosome, and a crucial factor in the mitochondria-dependent death pathway. Here we show that Apaf1 plays a role in regulating centrosome maturation. By analyzing Apaf1-depleted cells, we have found that Apaf1 loss induces centrosome defects that impair centrosomal microtubule nucleation and cytoskeleton organizat...

The HH1 haplotype on chromosome 5 is associated with a reduced conception rate and a deficit of homozygotes at the population level in Holstein cattle. The source HH1 haplotype was traced to the bull Pawnee Farm Arlinda Chief (Chief), who was born in 1962 and has sired more than 16,000 daughters. We identified a nonsense mutation in APAF1 (apoptotic protease activating factor 1;APAF1 p.Q579X) w...

background: myelodysplastic syndromes (mdss) include a diverse group of clonal bone marrow disorders characterized by ineffective hematopoiesis and pancytopenia.it was found that down regulation of apaf1, a putative tumor suppressor gene (tsg),leads to resistance to chemotherapy and disease development in some cancers. in this study, we investigated the relation of apaf1 methylation status with...

objectives: myelodysplastic syndromes (mdss) include a diverse group of clonal bone marrow disorders characterized by ineffective hematopoiesis and pancytopenia. it was found that down regulation of apaf1 , a putative tumor suppressor gene, leads to resistance to chemotherapy and disease development in some cancers. in this study, we investigated the relation of apaf1 methylation status with it...