Metzstein M M, Hengartner M O, Tsung N, Ellis R E, Horvitz H R
Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139, USA.
Nature. 1996 Aug 8;382(6591):545-7. doi: 10.1038/382545a0.
The ces (for cell-death specification) genes of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans control the cell-death fate of individual cell types and are candidates for being the regulators of an evolutionarily conserved general pathway of programmed cell death. Here we present what we believe is the first molecular characterization of a ces gene. We cloned the gene ces-2, which is required to activate programmed cell death in the sister cells of the serotoninergic neurosecretory motor (NSM) neurons, and found that ces-2 encodes a basic region leucine-zipper (bZIP) transcription factor. The CES-2 protein is most similar to members of the PAR (proline- and acid-rich) subfamily of bZIP proteins and has DNA-binding specificity like that of PAR-family proteins. An oncogenic form of the mammalian PAR-family protein, hepatic leukaemia factor (HLF), is reported to effect programmed cell death in mammalian cells. On the basis of these observations, we suggest that some CES-2/PAR family transcription factors are evolutionary conserved regulators of programmed cell death.
线虫秀丽隐杆线虫的ces（细胞死亡特异性）基因控制着个体细胞类型的细胞死亡命运，并且是进化保守的程序性细胞死亡通用途径的调节因子的候选者。在此，我们展示了我们认为是ces基因的首次分子特征描述。我们克隆了ces-2基因，该基因是在5-羟色胺能神经分泌运动（NSM）神经元的姐妹细胞中激活程序性细胞死亡所必需的，并发现ces-2编码一种碱性区域亮氨酸拉链（bZIP）转录因子。CES-2蛋白与bZIP蛋白的PAR（富含脯氨酸和酸性氨基酸）亚家族成员最为相似，并且具有与PAR家族蛋白类似的DNA结合特异性。据报道，哺乳动物PAR家族蛋白的一种致癌形式，即肝白血病因子（HLF），在哺乳动物细胞中影响程序性细胞死亡。基于这些观察结果，我们认为一些CES-2/PAR家族转录因子是程序性细胞死亡的进化保守调节因子。
