"Have you seen this?" Diffuse hepatic apoptosis.
One important cell death pathway involves binding of the cell surface receptor Fas, which recruits and activates specific initiator and effector caspases. In this study Balb/c mice were injected with monoclonal antibody to Fas either alone or followed by the tripeptide caspase inhibitor Z-VAD.fmk. At four hours mice were killed along with concurrent controls and tissues processed for histological examination and immunocytochemical staining for cleaved caspase-3. The livers in all animals treated with Fas alone showed massive apoptosis and positive staining for cleaved caspase-3 whereas those treated with Fas and Z-VAD.fmk or controls showed little or no apoptosis or staining for cleaved caspase-3. These features suggest that massive apoptosis may be important in fulminant liver disease.
Greaves
P
P
MRC Toxicology Unit, University of Leicester, United Kingdom.
Edwards
R
R
Cohen
G M
GM
MacFarlane
M
M
D000590:Amino Acid Chloromethyl Ketones / Q000494:pharmacology*; D000818:Animals; D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal / Q000494:pharmacology*; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000187:drug effects*; D053148:Caspase 3; D020169:Caspases / Q000032:analysis; D004336:Drug Antagonism; D008099:Liver / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000201:enzymology / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D019014:fas Receptor / Q000276:immunology*
D000590:Amino Acid Chloromethyl Ketones; D000911:Antibodies, Monoclonal; C096713:benzyloxycarbonylvalyl-alanyl-aspartyl fluoromethyl ketone; D019014:fas Receptor; C505409:Casp3 protein, mouse; D053148:Caspase 3; D020169:Caspases