CGC Bibliography Paper 3171

Apoptosis: Death by crowd control.

Hengartner M

Medline:
Citation:
Science 281: 1298-1299 1998
Type:
REVIEW
Genes:
ced-3 ced-4 ced-9
Abstract:
Animals use apoptosis, or programmed cell death, to eliminate extraneous or dangerous cells. The muscle of this controlled cellular deconstruction is provided by the caspase family of cysteine proteases, which cleave key targets in the cell. Caspases normally exist in cells as inactive proenzymes; proteolytic processing at a few specific sites unleashes their latent enzymatic activity and triggers cell destruction.