APIP Proteins and Enzymes

The mammalian homologues of the key cell death gene CED-4 in C. elegans has been identified recently from human and mouse and designated Apaf1 (for apoptosis protease-activating factor 1) (1,2). Apaf1 binds to cytochrome c (Apaf2) and caspase-9 (Apaf3), which leads to caspase-9 activation. Activated caspase-9 in turn cleaves and activates caspase-3 that is one of the key proteases, being responsible for the proteolytic cleavage of many key proteins in apoptosis (3). Recently, Cho et al (4) have ...