Multiple Mechanisms of Zinc-Mediated Inhibition for the Apoptotic Caspases-3, -6, -7, and -8.

ABSTRACT: Zinc is emerging as a widely used and important biological regulatory signal. Cellular zinc levels are tightly regulated by a complex array of zinc importers and exporters to control processes such as apoptotic cell death. While caspase inhibition by zinc has been reported previously, the reported inhibition constants were too weak to suggest a critical biological role for zinc-mediated inhibition. In this work, we have adopted a method of assessing available zinc. This allowed assessment of accurate inhibition constants for apoptotic caspases, caspase-3, -6, -7, and -8. Each of these caspases are inhibited by zinc at intracellular levels but with widely differing inhibition constants and different zinc binding stoichiometries. Caspase-3, -6, and -8 appear to be constitutively inhibited by

SUBMITTER: Eron SJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5959779 | biostudies-literature | 2018 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature