title: Possible involvement of caspase-7 in cell cycle progression at mitosis.
abstract: Caspases are suggested to play essential roles not only in apoptotic but also in non-apoptotic functions. However, the contribution of caspases to the cell cycle regulation is unclear. Here we found that caspases including caspase-3, caspase-7, caspase-8 and caspase-9 were activated during mitosis. Chemically synthesized caspase inhibitors delayed mitotic progression and induced accumulation of mitotic cells, which exhibited abnormal chromatin condensation and incomplete chromosome segregation. Furthermore, knockdown of caspase-7 by using small interfering RNAs resulted in the inhibition of cell proliferation, but knockdown of other caspases did not show a significant effect on cell growth. The expression of short hairpin RNA directed against caspase-7 induced the cell cycle arrest at mitosis, which was rescued by the re-expression of caspase-7 containing silent mutations at the target site for the short hairpin RNA. These results revealed that caspase-7 has a novel role during cell cycle progression at mitosis.
authors.affiliation: Biosignal Research Center, Kobe University, 1-1 Rokkodai-cho, Nada-ku, Kobe 657-8501, Japan.
authors.forename: Toshiaki
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hashimoto
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yamauchi
authors.forename: Tony
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hunter
authors.forename: Ushio
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Kikkawa
authors.forename: Shinji
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kamada
mesh_terms: D053179:Caspase 7 / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D061945:Caspase Inhibitors; D020169:Caspases / Q000378:metabolism; D002453:Cell Cycle; D045744:Cell Line, Tumor; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D004789:Enzyme Activation; D006801:Humans; D008938:Mitosis; D034741:RNA, Small Interfering / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D061945:Caspase Inhibitors; D034741:RNA, Small Interfering; D053179:Caspase 7; D020169:Caspases