Inflammasomes and Other Caspase-Activation Platforms
- St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee 38105, USA
- Correspondence: douglas.green{at}stjude.org
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
OTHER WAYS TO CELL DEATH
Although most apoptosis in mammals occurs by means of the mitochondrial pathway or death receptor ligation, caspase activation can occur by other mechanisms as well. Some of these lead to cell death, and some have other functions.
Apart from the executioner caspases, caspases are activated by the mechanism known as induced proximity. As we have seen, this allows the formation of dimers or higher-order oligomers, which is generally effected by the binding of one or more adapter proteins to the prodomains of the caspase monomers. These adapter proteins help to define the caspase-activation pathway involved. In this review, we discuss the activation and functions of other caspases that can participate in cell death but can also have other functions as well—caspase-1, caspase-2, caspase-4, and caspase-5 (as well as caspase-11 in mice). These caspases are not activated by the pathways described in Green (2022a,b) but, rather, by other activation …
