Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UNIPROT:P42574 (caspase-3)
 45,978 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Physiological cell deaths occur ubiquitously throughout biology and have common attributes, including apoptotic morphology with mitosis-like chromatin condensation and prelytic genome digestion. The fundamental question is whether a common mechanism of dying underlies these common hallmarks of death. Here we describe evidence of such a conserved mechanism in different cells induced by distinct stimuli to undergo physiological cell death. Our genetic and quantitative biochemical analyses of T- and B-cell deaths reveal a conserved pattern of requisite components. We have dissected the role of cysteine proteases (caspases) in cell death to reflect two obligate classes of cytoplasmic activities functioning in an amplifying cascade, with upstream interleukin-1beta-converting enzyme-like proteases activating downstream caspase 3-like caspases. Bcl-2 spares cells from death by punctuating this cascade, preventing the activation of downstream caspases while leaving upstream activity undisturbed. This observation permits an operational definition of the stages of the cell death process. Upstream steps, which are necessary but not themselves lethal, are modulators of the death process. Downstream steps are effectors of, and not dissociable from, actual death; the irreversible commitment to cell death reflects the initiation of this downstream phase. In addition to caspase 3-like proteases, the effector phase of death involves the activation in the nucleus of cell cycle kinases of the cyclin-dependent kinase (Cdk) family. Nuclear recruitment and activation of Cdk components is dependent on the caspase cascade, suggesting that catastrophic Cdk activity may be the actual effector of cell death. The conservation of the cell death mechanism is not reflected in the molecular identity of its individual components, however. For example, we have detected different cyclin-Cdk pairs in different instances of cell death. The ordered course of events that we have observed in distinct cases reflects essential thematic elements of a conserved sequence of modulatory and effector activities comprising a common pathway of physiological cell death.
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PMID:Commitment and effector phases of the physiological cell death pathway elucidated with respect to Bcl-2 caspase, and cyclin-dependent kinase activities. 956 10

Previously, we demonstrated that inostamycin, an inhibitor of phosphatidylinositol turnover, caused cell cycle arrest at the G1 phase, inhibiting the expression of cyclins D1 and E in normal cells. In the present study, we examined the effects of inostamycin on cell cycle progression and apoptosis in human small cell lung carcinoma Ms-1 cells. Treatment of exponentially proliferating Ms-1 cells with low concentrations of inostamycin caused cells to accumulate in the G1 phase. We found that inostamycin decreased cyclin D1, and increased cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors such as p21WAF1 and p27KIP1 in Ms-1 cells. On the other hand, higher concentrations of inostamycin induced morphological apoptosis and DNA fragmentation in Ms-1 cells without affecting the expression of p53, Bcl-2 and Bax. Inostamycin-induced apoptosis was suppressed by an inhibitor of caspase-3, and a 17 kDa fragment of activated caspase-3 was detected following inostamycin treatment. Therefore, caspase-3(-like) would appear to be involved in inostamycin-induced apoptosis. On the other hand, an inhibitor of caspase-3(-like) proteases did not affect the inhibitory effect of inostamycin on cyclin D1 expression, suggesting that caspase-3(-like) proteases were not responsible for inostamycin-induced G1 arrest.
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PMID:Inhibition of cyclin D1 expression and induction of apoptosis by inostamycin in small cell lung carcinoma cells. 960 Jan 26

Events accompanying sequential exposure of U937 leukemic cells to the deoxycytidine (dCyd) analogs 1-[beta-D-arabinofuranosyl]cytosine (ara-C) or 2',2'-difluorodeoxycytidine (gemcitabine; dFdC) followed by two protein kinase C (PKC) activators [bryostatin 1 (BRY) or phorbol 12'-myristate 13'-acetate (PMA)] exhibiting disparate differentiation-inducing abilities were characterized. A 24-hr exposure to 10 nM BRY or PMA after a 6-hr incubation with 1 microM ara-C or 100 nM dFdC resulted in equivalent increases in apoptosis, caspase-3 activation, and polyADP-ribose polymerase degradation, as well as identical DNA cleavage patterns. BRY and PMA did not modify retention of the lethal ara-C metabolite ara-CTP or alter ara-CTP/dCTP ratios. Unexpectedly, pretreatment of cells with ara-C or dFdC opposed BRY- and PMA-related induction of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors (CDKIs) p21CIP1 and/or p27KIP1. These effects were not mimicked by the DNA polymerase inhibitor aphidicolin or by VP-16, a potent inducer of apoptosis. Inhibition of PKC activator-induced CDKI expression by ara-C and dFdC did not lead to redistribution of proliferating cell nuclear antigen but was accompanied by sub-additive or antagonistic effects on leukemic cell differentiation. Sequential exposure of cells to ara-C followed by BRY or PMA led to substantial reductions in clonogenicity that could not be attributed solely to apoptosis. Finally, pretreatment of cells with ara-C attenuated PMA- and BRY-mediated activation of mitogen-activated protein kinase, an enzyme implicated in CDKI induction. Collectively, these findings suggest that pretreatment of leukemic cells with certain dCyd analogs interferes with CDKI induction by the PKC activators PMA and BRY, and that this action may contribute to modulation of apoptosis and differentiation in cells exposed sequentially to these agents.
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PMID:Inhibition of protein kinase C activator-mediated induction of p21CIP1 and p27KIP1 by deoxycytidine analogs in human leukemia cells: relationship to apoptosis and differentiation. 1040 25

Time-dependent ladder-type DNA fragmentation and morphological alterations consistent with apoptosis were observed among A253 human head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) cells in nude mice from 15 to 18 days after transplantation, without any drug treatment. No evidence of ladder-type DNA fragmentation was detected in A253 cells in vitro or in normal nude mouse tissues (skin and muscle). Our aim was to explore molecular factors associated with such spontaneous apoptosis. Bcl-2 protein expression decreased, while bax protein expression increased from day 9 after transplantation. Moreover, altered expression of bcl-2 and bax was accompanied by the increased proteolytic cleavage of poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP). Time-dependent dephosphorylation of Rb, followed by proteolytic cleavage, was also observed from day 9 after transplantation. The data indicate that the caspase-3 activation and cleavage of Rb protein may represent important steps in the regulation pathway of bax-mediated spontaneous apoptosis. Interestingly, the time-dependent activation of spontaneous apoptosis was almost simultaneous with the induction of differentiation and increased expression of several differentiation-associated regulatory proteins. An increased expression of cyclin D1 and cyclin-dependent kinase-5 (cdk5) was observed from day 9 after transplantation, whereas only slight alteration of cdk4 expression was found. The time-dependent activation of cyclin D1 and cdk5 preceded both the induction of ladder-type DNA fragmentation and increased keratin pearl formation. Furthermore, MCM3 was cleaved early in spontaneous apoptosis and differentiation. Our observations suggest the involvement of cyclin D1-cdk5 overexpression and MCM3 cleavage in bax-mediated spontaneous apoptosis and differentiation in A253 xenografts. P53 and WAF1 proteins were not expressed in the xenografts, indicating that the changes in the regulatory proteins during apoptosis and differentiation were not p53 or WAF1 dependent.
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PMID:Involvement of cyclin D1-cdk5 overexpression and MCM3 cleavage in bax-associated spontaneous apoptosis and differentiation in an A253 human head and neck carcinoma xenograft model. 1049 26

Ligation of cell surface matrix adhesion receptors such as integrins can increase expression of specific cell cycle regulatory proteins such as cyclin A, thereby regulating cell cycle progression. Disruption of cell surface matrix receptor interaction with the extracellular matrix can trigger apoptosis. Induction of apoptosis has been linked to unscheduled up-regulation of cyclin A and activation of cyclin-A-associated dependent kinase 2 activity due to cleavage of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors by caspases. We have found that ligation of the cell surface matrix adhesion receptor CD44 by anti-CD44 antibody induces cell detachment and triggers apoptosis. In this report we show that ligation of CD44 by anti-CD44 antibody increases the expression of cyclin A protein prior to activation of caspase-3-like activity and morphological changes of apoptosis. Down-regulation of cyclin A protein levels by cyclin A antisense oligonucleotides dramatically decreased fibroblast apoptosis in response to anti-CD44 antibody. These data identify an important functional role of cyclin A in the induction of fibroblast apoptosis due to the ligation of the cell surface adhesion receptor CD44 by anti-CD44 antibody.
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PMID:Functional role of cyclin A on induction of fibroblast apoptosis due to ligation of CD44 matrix receptor by anti-CD44 antibody. 1085 61

Farnesyltransferase inhibitor (FTI) induces apoptosis of transformed cells. This involves changes in mitochondria, including decrease of mitochondrial membrane potential and the release of cytochrome c. The released cytochrome c then induces events leading to the activation of caspase-3. In this study, we report that purine derivative cyclin-dependent kinase (Cdk) inhibitors, roscovitine and olomoucine, dramatically enhance this FTI-induced apoptosis of human cancer cell lines. We noticed the synergy between Cdk inhibitors and FTI through our screen to identify compounds that enhance FTI-induced apoptosis of promyelocytic leukemic cell line HL-60. The Cdk inhibitors by themselves do not induce apoptosis at the concentrations used. Roscovitine synergizes with FTI to release cytochrome c from mitochondria. In addition, we detected synergistic effects of FTI and roscovitine to inhibit hyperphosphorylation of retinoblastoma protein. Enhancement of FTI-induced apoptosis by roscovitine is not unique to HL-60 cells, since similar synergy was observed with a leukemic cell line CEM and a prostate cancer cell line LNCaP. In LNCaP cells, in addition to roscovitine and olomoucine, phophatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI 3-kinase) inhibitor, LY294002, was effective in enhancing FTI-induced apoptosis. However, the effects of roscovitine appear to be distinct from those of LY294002, since roscovitine did not affect Akt activity while LY294002 significantly decreased the activity of Akt. Our finding of the synergy between FTI and Cdk inhibitor is significant for understanding the mechanism of action of FTI as well as for clinical use of FTI.
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PMID:Cdk inhibitors, roscovitine and olomoucine, synergize with farnesyltransferase inhibitor (FTI) to induce efficient apoptosis of human cancer cell lines. 1087 58

In a previous study, we prepared short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) mixtures mimicking the composition of the digested fibers from wheat bran, oat bran, pectin, and cellulose and tested the products on U4 cells, a cell-line model for normal colonocytes. These SCFA mixes induced the cyclin-dependent kinase (cdk) inhibitors p21 and p27, which bound to cdk2/cyclin E and cdk4/cyclin D1 complexes, blocking their kinase activity and arresting cell growth. SCFAs from digested fiber may control intestinal crypt height in vivo by inducing apoptosis in growth-arrested cells at the top of the crypt. In the present study, we report that SCFA mixes induced apoptosis of U4 cells and unexpectedly caused both a sustained activation of the stress-activated protein kinase c-jun N-terminal kinase 1 (JNK1) and downregulation of the tumor suppressor protein p53. JNK1 bound to p53, and the amount of JNK1-bound p53 accurately reflected the amount of total cellular p53. After activation by SCFAs, JNK1 phosphorylated its bound p53. This phosphorylation is likely to have converted p53 into an apoptotic target because p53 breakdown correlated with caspase-3 activity, was inhibited by a caspase-3 inhibitor in a dose-dependent manner, and was inhibited by transfection of dominant-negative JNK1. Because JNK1 activation was sustained in SCFA-treated U4 cells, JNK1 can bind, phosphorylate, and release p53 for proteolysis and then continue this cycle until many p53 molecules have been phosphorylated. Loss of p53 protein was likely due to proteolysis and not to transcriptional changes because a sixfold decrease in p53 protein occurred within 3-24 h of SCFA treatment, whereas p53 mRNA levels were downregulated as much only after 2-3 d. SCFA mixes targeted p53 and possibly other cellular proteins for degradation during apoptosis by causing a sustained activation of JNKs.
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PMID:Downregulation of p53 by sustained JNK activation during apoptosis. 1110 63

The ubiquitin proteasome system is responsible for the proteolysis of important cell cycle and apoptosis-regulatory proteins. In this paper we report that the dipeptidyl proteasome inhibitor, phthalimide-(CH2)8CH-(cyclopentyl) CO-Arg(NO2)-Leu-H (CEP1612), induces apoptosis and inhibits tumor growth of the human lung cancer cell line A-549 in an in vivo model. In cultured A-549 cells, CEP1612 treatment results in accumulation of two proteasome natural substrates, the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors p21WAF1 and p27KIP1, indicating its ability to inhibit proteasome activity in intact cells. Furthermore, CEP1612 induces apoptosis as evident by caspase-3 activation and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase cleavage. Treatment of A-549 tumor-bearing nude mice with CEP1612 (10 mg/kg/day, i.p. for 31 days) resulted in massive induction of apoptosis and significant (68%; P < 0.05) tumor growth inhibition, as shown by terminal deoxynucleotidyltransferase-mediated UTP end labeling. Furthermore, immunostaining of tumor specimens demonstrated in vivo accumulation of p21WAF1 and p27KIP1 after CEP1612 treatment. The results suggest that CEP1612 is a promising candidate for further development as an anticancer drug and demonstrate the feasibility of using proteasome inhibitors as novel antitumor agents.
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PMID:CEP1612, a dipeptidyl proteasome inhibitor, induces p21WAF1 and p27KIP1 expression and apoptosis and inhibits the growth of the human lung adenocarcinoma A-549 in nude mice. 1124 20

beta-Lapachone, a novel anti-neoplastic drug, induces various cancer cells to undergo apoptosis. In a previous report, we showed that beta-lapachone-induced apoptosis of HL-60 cells is mediated by oxidative stress. However, in the present study, we found that beta-lapachone-induced apoptosis of human prostate cancer (HPC) cells may be independent of oxidative stress. In contrast to the 10-fold beta-lapachone-induced increase in H(2)O(2) production seen in HL-60 cells, only a 2- to 4-fold increase was observed in HPC cells. N-acetyl-L-cysteine (NAC), a thiol antioxidant, inhibited the apoptosis in DU145 cells after 12 h exposure to beta-lapachone. Nonetheless, NAC, along with other antioxidants, failed to exert similar effect in HPC cells subjected to beta-lapachone treatment for 24 h. Under this premise, we suggest that the oxidative stress may not play a crucial role in beta-lapachone-mediated HPC cell apoptosis. Here we demonstrate that damage to genomic DNA is the trigger for the apoptosis of HPC cells induced by beta-lapachone. According to our results, beta-lapachone stimulates DNA dependent kinase expression and poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase cleavage in advance of significant morphological changes. beta-Lapachone promotes the expression of cyclin-dependent kinase (cdk) inhibitors (p21(WAF1) and p27(Kip1)), induces bak expression, and subsequently stimulates the activation of caspase-7 but not of caspase-3 or caspase-8 during the apoptosis of HPC cells. Taken together, these results suggest that the signaling pathway involving the beta-lapachone-induced apoptosis of HPC cell may be by DNA damage, induction of cdk inhibitors (p21 and p27), and then subsequent stimulation of caspase-7 activation.
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PMID:Induction of CDK inhibitors (p21(WAF1) and p27(Kip1)) and Bak in the beta-lapachone-induced apoptosis of human prostate cancer cells. 1125 23

Peripheral blood progenitor cells (PBPC) mobilized by granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (G-CSF) promptly engraft allogeneic recipients after myeloablative chemotherapy for hematologic malignancies. Surprisingly, no exacerbation of acute graft-vs-host disease has been observed despite a 10-fold higher T-cell content in PBPC compared with bone marrow allografts. Because G-CSF can suppress T-cell proliferation in response to mitogens and enhance their activation-induced apoptosis, we examined the molecular mechanisms underlying G-CSF-induced immune dysfunction. Normal allogeneic lymphocytes were challenged with phytohemagglutinin in the presence of serum collected after G-CSF administration (postG) to healthy PBPC donors, and the expression of key components of the cell cycle and apoptotic machineries was investigated by flow cytometry and Western blotting. Lymphocyte stimulation was associated with collapse of mitochondrial transmembrane potential, hypergeneration of reactive oxygen intermediates, and activation of caspase-3 and DNA fragmentation. Lymphocytes were arrested in a G(1)-like phase of the cell cycle, as measured by G(1)-phase cyclin expression and bromodeoxyuridine (BrdUrd) incorporation. Cell tracking experiments confirmed the occurrence of a lower number of population doublings in postG compared with preG cultures. Unexpectedly, the phosphorylation state of the protein encoded by the retinoblastoma susceptibility gene (pRB) was unaltered in postG cultures, and the inhibition of cell cycle progression occurred without the recruitment of the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors p15(INK4B), p16(INK4A), and p27(Kip1). We eventually evaluated the ability of antioxidant/cytoprotectant agents to prevent the G-CSF-induced mitochondrial dysfunction and inhibition of cell cycle progression. Of interest, both N-acetylcysteine and amifostine reduced apoptotic cell death by 45% on average, inhibited the activation/processing of caspase-3, and increased BrdUrd incorporation in postG cultures. Based on these experimental findings, a model is proposed in which T-cell activation in the presence of serum immunoregulatory factor(s) induced by G-CSF is associated with a molecular phenotype mimicking the G(1)-S transition and consisting of pRB phosphorylation, lack of CDKI recruitment, and reduced cyclin-E expression. The putative relationship between lymphocyte mitogenic unresponsiveness and apoptosis induction would occur at the level of key molecules shared by the cell cycle and apoptotic machineries. Whether the G-CSF-mediated modulation of lymphocyte functions in vitro is beneficial in transplantation medicine remains to be determined.
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PMID:T-cell apoptosis induced by granulocyte colony-stimulating factor is associated with retinoblastoma protein phosphorylation and reduced expression of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors. 1130 Nov 80


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