Schendel S L, Montal M, Reed J C
The Burnham Institute, Program on Apoptosis and Cell Death Research, 10901 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, California 92037, USA.
Cell Death Differ. 1998 May;5(5):372-80. doi: 10.1038/sj.cdd.4400365.
The Bcl-2 protein family function(s) as important regulators of cellular decisions to heed or ignore death signals. The three-dimensional structure of the Bcl-2 homolog, Bcl-XL, bears a strong resemblance to some pore-forming bacterial toxins. This similarity suggested that the Bcl-2 family proteins may also possess channel-forming capability. This review summarizes the recent initial studies on the in vitro channel activity of Bcl-2, Bcl-XL and Bax and offers some speculation as to the physiological role that these channels may play in the cell death pathway.
Bcl-2蛋白家族作为细胞响应或忽略死亡信号决策的重要调节因子发挥作用。Bcl-2同源物Bcl-XL的三维结构与一些形成孔道的细菌毒素有很强的相似性。这种相似性表明Bcl-2家族蛋白也可能具有形成通道的能力。本文综述了最近关于Bcl-2、Bcl-XL和Bax体外通道活性的初步研究，并对这些通道可能在细胞死亡途径中发挥的生理作用进行了一些推测。
