title: Caspase signaling in animal development.
abstract: The caspases are a family of cysteine proteases that function as central regulators of cell death. Recent investigations in Caenorhabditis elegans, Drosophila, and mice indicate that caspases are essential not only in controlling the number of cells involved in sculpting or deleting structures in developing animals, but also in dynamic cell processes such as cell-fate determination, compensatory proliferation of neighboring cells, and actin cytoskeleton reorganization, in a non-apoptotic context during development. This review focuses primarily on caspase functions involving their enzymatic activity.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Histogenetic Dynamics, RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology, Kobe, 650-0047, Japan. kuranaga@cdb.riken.jp
authors.forename: Erina
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kuranaga
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D020169:Caspases / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D002465:Cell Movement / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D049109:Cell Proliferation; D008954:Models, Biological; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D020169:Caspases