Bid chimeras indicate that most BH3-only proteins can directly activate Bak and Bax, and show no preference for Bak versus Bax.

ABSTRACT: The mitochondrial pathway of apoptosis is initiated by Bcl-2 homology region 3 (BH3)-only members of the Bcl-2 protein family. On upregulation or activation, certain BH3-only proteins can directly bind and activate Bak and Bax to induce conformation change, oligomerization and pore formation in mitochondria. BH3-only proteins, with the exception of Bid, are intrinsically disordered and therefore, functional studies often utilize peptides based on just their BH3 domains. However, these reagents do not possess the hydrophobic membrane targeting domains found on the native BH3-only molecule. To generate each BH3-only protein as a recombinant protein that could efficiently target mitochondria, we developed recombinant Bid chimeras in which the BH3 domain was replaced with that of other BH3-onl

SUBMITTER: Hockings C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4650538 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature