PUMA

By Christina Towers, PhD.

Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is controlled by a caspase signal cascade that activates downstream signals to induce the morphological changes used to differentiate apoptosis from other forms of cell death.  Novus Biologicals offers a variety of antibodies and tools to detect the different morphological indicators of cell death. 

Similar to other cell processes, the balance between cell survival and cell death is an important equilibrium that when altered expression of genes can lead to a variety of disease.

Despite in depth characterization of the role of IRE1 alpha (inositol-requiring enzyme 1 alpha) in activating the unfolded protein response (UPR) in the ER - little is known about the molecular mechanisms by which this ER protein has shown to regulate intracellular calcium levels and subsequent apoptosis. Intracellular calcium homeostasis is fundamental to many physiological processes, and an increase in Ca2+ is associated with both the early and late stages of apoptosis.

Noxa is a pro-apoptotic gene belonging to the Bcl2 protein family that is unique in that it contains only BH3 domain. The BH3-only subclass of proteins, including proteins like PUMA and Bim in addition to Noxa, regulate the remaining Bcl-2 family members.