From the Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio 45267 and
Divisions of Immunobiology and Infectious Diseases, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati Ohio 45229.
J Biol Chem. 2018 Apr 13;293(15):5462-5463. doi: 10.1074/jbc.H118.002379.
Caspase-3 is well known as the "executioner" whose activation commits the cell to an apoptotic fate, but low levels of caspase-3 activity also play key roles in development. A new study explains how cells can balance these functions, using biophysical, structural, and computational approaches to demonstrate the mechanism by which phosphorylation of conserved sites on a distal surface loop reduces or abolishes catalytic activity. These results provide new insights into allosteric regulation mechanisms and offer new opportunities for development of caspase-3 modulators.
Caspase-3 是众所周知的“执行者”,其激活将细胞推向凋亡命运,但低水平的 caspase-3 活性在发育中也起着关键作用。一项新的研究解释了细胞如何平衡这些功能,它使用生物物理、结构和计算方法来证明在远端表面环的保守位点磷酸化如何降低或消除催化活性的机制。这些结果为别构调节机制提供了新的见解,并为 caspase-3 调节剂的开发提供了新的机会。