title: Identification of an inhibitor of caspase activation from heart extracts; ATP blocks apoptosome formation.
abstract: By revealing the biochemistry of apoptosis it is expected we will both improve our understanding of diseases where apoptosis plays an important role and aid the development of therapies for these disorders. Caspases are a family of proteases whose activity is required for apoptosis. In this study, a cell-free system was used to investigate the mechanism of caspase-9 activation in extracts from heart cells. Unlike extracts from other cell types, heart extracts were found to activate caspases poorly. This could be explained by the low levels of Apaf-1 in heart cells. However, subsequent testing showed that heart extracts contained an inhibitor of caspase activation that could block caspase activation in extracts from different cell types. Subsequent purification of the inhibitor of caspase activation from these extracts identified ATP. Caspase-9 is activated by recruitment into a multi-protein complex, the apoptosome, which then activates downstream caspases that kill the cell. Importantly, size exclusion chromatography showed that ATP inhibits apoptosome formation at physiologically relevant concentrations. Together these data support the hypothesis that intracellular ATP concentration is a critical factor in determining whether an apoptotic stimulus can induce apoptosome formation. Thus, the well described fall in intracellular ATP apoptosis is not an epiphenomenon but may be a pro-apoptotic event contributing to cell death.
authors.affiliation: Cell Stress and Apoptosis Laboratory, National Centre Biomedical Engineering Science, National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland.
authors.forename: Afshin
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Samali
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: O'Mahoney
authors.forename: Janice
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Reeve
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Logue
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Szegezdi
authors.forename: Jill
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: McMahon
authors.forename: Howard O
authors.initials: HO
authors.lastname: Fearnhead
mesh_terms: D000255:Adenosine Triphosphate / Q000378:metabolism*; D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000502:physiology; D053478:Apoptosomes / Q000378:metabolism*; D053148:Caspase 3 / Q000378:metabolism*; D061945:Caspase Inhibitors; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D004789:Enzyme Activation; D004791:Enzyme Inhibitors / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism*; D008099:Liver / Q000737:chemistry; D009206:Myocardium / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000166:cytology; D032383:Myocytes, Cardiac / Q000166:cytology / Q000378:metabolism; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley
chemical_list: D053478:Apoptosomes; D061945:Caspase Inhibitors; D004791:Enzyme Inhibitors; D000255:Adenosine Triphosphate; D053148:Caspase 3