Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UNIPROT:P10415 (Bcl-2)
 33,771 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Proteins of the Bcl-2 family are critical regulators of apoptosis. Proapoptotic members, like Bax, contain three of the four Bcl-2 homology regions (BH1-3), while BH3-only proteins, like Bim, possess only the short BH3 motif. Database searches revealed Bfk, an unusual novel member of the Bcl-2 family that contains a BH2 and BH3 region but not BH1 or BH4. Bfk is thus most closely related to Bcl-G(L). It lacks a C-terminal membrane anchor and is cytosolic. Enforced expression of Bfk weakly promoted apoptosis and antagonized Bcl-2's prosurvival function. Like Bcl-G(L), Bfk did not bind to any Bcl-2 family members, even though its BH3 motif can mediate association with prosurvival proteins. Low amounts of Bfk were found in stomach, ovary, bone marrow and spleen, but its level in the mammary gland rose markedly during pregnancy, suggesting that Bfk may play a role in mammary development.
 ...
PMID:Bfk: a novel weakly proapoptotic member of the Bcl-2 protein family with a BH3 and a BH2 region. 1270 Jun 46

Reduced expression of pro-apoptotic Bcl-2 family proteins has been described in many gastrointestinal cancers, and may play a role in tumourigenesis. The human homologue of the pro-apoptotic Bcl-2 protein, Bfk, is predominantly expressed in tissues of the gastrointestinal tract. In colon, four alternatively spliced isoforms were identified; of which two are pro-apoptotic when overexpressed. In the transition from normal tissue to tumour, pro-apoptotic Bfk isoform expression is substantially reduced in up to 80% of tumours isolated from the human gastrointestinal tract (8/10 colonic tumours and 26/37 of all gastrointestinal tumours) compared to 3/117 tumours from outside the gastrointestinal tract. These data suggest that pro-apoptotic isoforms of Bfk may help to protect against the development of human gastrointestinal malignancy.
 ...
PMID:Expression of pro-apoptotic Bfk isoforms reduces during malignant transformation in the human gastrointestinal tract. 1596 Oct 81