title: Caspases: an ancient cellular sword of Damocles.
abstract: Caspases are a family of cysteine proteases homologous to the Caenorhabditis elegans programmed cell death gene product CED-3. Caspases and their distant relatives, meta- and paracaspases, have been found in phylogenetically distant nonmetazoan groups, including plants, fungi and prokaryotes. This review summarizes the current information on the mechanisms and functions of non-mammalian caspases and their relatives in apoptotic and nonapoptotic processes, and explores the possible evolutionary origin of the caspase family.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Boyce
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Degterev
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yuan
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000502:physiology*; D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D020169:Caspases / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D006801:Humans
chemical_list: D029742:Caenorhabditis elegans Proteins; D020169:Caspases