title: The death domain superfamily: a tale of two interfaces?
abstract: The death domain superfamily, composed of the death domain (DD), death effector domain (DED) and caspase recruitment domain (CARD) families of proteins, plays a pivotal role in signaling events that regulate apoptosis. This review compares and contrasts the ten superfamily members with known structures. In particular, the two heterodimerization modes described to date, the CARD-CARD interaction between human Apaf-1 and procaspase 9, and the DD-DD interaction between Drosophila Pelle and Tube, are examined. The dimerization modes are strikingly different and, importantly, are not mutually exclusive. In fact, a trimer can be formed using both interactions.
authors.affiliation: Dept of Pathology, The University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-0602, USA.
authors.forename: C H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Weber
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vincenz
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000502:physiology; D002352:Carrier Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism / Q000502:physiology*; D004330:Drosophila; D008958:Models, Molecular; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D002352:Carrier Proteins