Turk Boris, Stoka Veronika
Department of Biochemistry, Molecular and Structural Biology, J. Stefan Institute, Jamova 39, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
FEBS Lett. 2007 Jun 19;581(15):2761-7. doi: 10.1016/j.febslet.2007.05.038. Epub 2007 May 25.
Proteases were, for a long time, mainly considered as protein degrading enzymes. However, in the last decade this view has changed dramatically, and the focus is now on proteases as signalling molecules. One of the best examples is apoptosis, the major mechanism used by eukaryotes to remove superfluous, damaged and potentially dangerous cells, in which a number of proteases have been found to play a central role. Of these the caspases have been considered to be the major players. However, more recently, other proteases have been increasingly suggested as being important in apoptosis, in particular the cysteine cathepsins. In this review the roles of caspases and cysteine cathepsins in apoptosis signalling are compared and discussed.
长期以来，蛋白酶主要被视为蛋白质降解酶。然而，在过去十年中，这种观点发生了巨大变化，现在的焦点是将蛋白酶视为信号分子。其中一个最好的例子是细胞凋亡，这是真核生物用于清除多余、受损和潜在危险细胞的主要机制，在这一过程中发现许多蛋白酶发挥着核心作用。其中，半胱天冬酶被认为是主要参与者。然而，最近越来越多的研究表明，其他蛋白酶在细胞凋亡中也很重要，尤其是半胱氨酸组织蛋白酶。在这篇综述中，我们比较并讨论了半胱天冬酶和半胱氨酸组织蛋白酶在细胞凋亡信号传导中的作用。
