Caspase-14 Products

Description

Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, is a common property of all multicellular organisms. The current dogma of apoptosis suggests that the components of the core cell-death machinery are integral to cells and widely conserved across species. Caspases, a family of cysteinyl aspartate-specific proteases, are integral components of the cell death machinery (reviewed in Siegal, 2006; and Lavrik et al, 2005). They play a central role in the initiation and execution of apoptotic cell death and in inflammation. Caspases are typically divided into 3 major groups, depending on the structure of their prodomain and their function. Group 1: inflammatory caspases (caspases 1, 4, 5, 11, 12, 14). Group II: initiator of apoptosis caspases (caspases 2, 8, 9). Group II: effector caspases (caspases 3, 6, 7). Caspases are constitutively expressed in almost all cell types as inactive proenzymes (zymogens: enzyme precursors which require a biochemical change to become active enzymes) that are processed and activated in response to a variety of pro-apoptotic or inflammatory stimuli. The procaspases (32-56 kDa) contain four domains: an N-terminal prodomain (2-25 kDa), a large subunit (p20: 17-21 kDa), a small subunit (p10: 10-13 kDa) and a short linker region between the large and small subunits. Caspase activation involves proteolytic processing of the proenzyme at specific aspartate residues between the domains. This results in removal of the prodomain as well as the linker region and formation of a heterodimer containing one large and one small subunit (p20-p10). The active caspase is a tetramer composed of two heterodimers (p202-p102). Active caspases mediate cell death and inflammation through cleavage of particular cellular substrates that are involved in these processes. Caspase-14 activation has been implicated in keratinocyte senescence which leads to the cornified cell layer, suggesting a role for caspase-14 in epithelial cell differentiation (Pistritto et al. 2002). Terminal differentiation of keratinocytes has some features of classical apoptosis including DNA fragmentation, nuclear condensation, and induction of cross-linking transglutaminases. Tumor-specific alterations in caspase-14 expression have been found in epithelial malignancies, suggesting that caspase-14 plays a role in epithelial cell transformation. The caspase-14 IMG-5713 antibody recognizes the proform of caspase-14 (approx. 28-32 kDa), and the large (approx. 14-21 kDa) and small (approx. 10-11 kDa) of active/cleaved caspase-14.

Bioinformatics

Entrez	12365 Mouse 23581 Human 299587 Rat
Uniprot	NP_036246 Human P31944 Human
Product By Gene ID	23581
Alternate Names	apoptosis-related cysteine protease CASP-14 caspase 14, apoptosis-related cysteine peptidase caspase 14, apoptosis-related cysteine protease caspase-14 EC 3.4.22.- MGC119078 MGC119079 MICE

Research Areas for Caspase-14

Find related products by research area and learn more about each of the different research areas below.

Apoptosis
Cancer
Caspases

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Caspase 14 - A unique caspase needed for skin differentiation Caspases are typically known for their role in cell death. However some caspases have recently been investigated for their function during cell proliferation and differentiation. Of these caspase-14 shows a unique expression pattern in the skin and...    Read more.

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