Regulating the reapers: activating metacaspases for programmed cell death.
Research during the past two decades has revealed that specialized cysteine proteases act as conserved initiators or executioners for programmed cell death (PCD) in eukaryotes. Caspases were first identified as common regulators of PCD in metazoans, whereas the role of metacaspases (MCs) as regulators of cellular suicide in plants has only been shown genetically in the past several years. Together with recent biochemical and molecular characterizations of some of the representative MCs from different model systems, multiple mechanisms that can mediate the post-translational regulation of these proteases are beginning to emerge. Further elucidation of these regulatory pathways and definition of the downstream degradomes targeted by MCs should lead to a better understanding of cell death control in plants, protozoans, and fungi.
Department of Plant Biology & Pathology, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA. Lam@aesop.rutgers.edu
Eric
E
Lam
Yi
Y
Zhang
D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D017360:Arabidopsis / Q000201:enzymology* / Q000235:genetics; D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D020169:Caspases / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D020134:Catalytic Domain; D016923:Cell Death; D015971:Gene Expression Regulation, Enzymologic; D018506:Gene Expression Regulation, Plant; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D018384:Oxidative Stress; D010802:Phylogeny; D011499:Protein Processing, Post-Translational; D013329:Structure-Activity Relationship
D029681:Arabidopsis Proteins; D020169:Caspases; C554451:MC1 protein, Arabidopsis; C516211:metacaspase 9, Arabidopsis