Boyce M, Degterev A, Yuan J
Department of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Cell Death Differ. 2004 Jan;11(1):29-37. doi: 10.1038/sj.cdd.4401339.
Caspases are a family of cysteine proteases homologous to the Caenorhabditis elegans programmed cell death gene product CED-3. Caspases and their distant relatives, meta- and paracaspases, have been found in phylogenetically distant nonmetazoan groups, including plants, fungi and prokaryotes. This review summarizes the current information on the mechanisms and functions of non-mammalian caspases and their relatives in apoptotic and nonapoptotic processes, and explores the possible evolutionary origin of the caspase family.
半胱天冬酶是一类与秀丽隐杆线虫程序性细胞死亡基因产物CED-3同源的半胱氨酸蛋白酶。在包括植物、真菌和原核生物在内的系统发育关系较远的非后生动物类群中，已发现了半胱天冬酶及其远亲——间型半胱天冬酶和类半胱天冬酶。本综述总结了目前关于非哺乳动物半胱天冬酶及其亲属在凋亡和非凋亡过程中的机制和功能的信息，并探讨了半胱天冬酶家族可能的进化起源。
