Apaf-1 Antibody [5E11]

Apaf-1 Monoclonal Antibody: Apoptosis is related to many diseases and induced by a family of cell death receptors and their ligands. Cell death signals are transduced by death domain containing adapter molecules and members of the caspase family of proteases. The mammalian homologous of the key cell death gene CED-4 in C. elegans was identified recently from human and mouse and designated Apaf1 for apoptosis protease-activating factor 1. Apaf1 binds to cytochrome c (Apaf2) and caspase-9 (Apaf3), which leads to caspase-9 activation. Activated caspase-9 in turn cleaves and activates caspase-3 that is one of the key proteases, being responsible for the proteolytic cleavage of many key proteins in apoptosis. Apaf1 can also associate with caspase-4 and caspase-8. Apaf1 transcript is ubiquitously expressed in human tissues.

Zou H, Henzel WJ, Liu X, et al. Apaf-1, a human protein homologous to C. elegans CED-4, participates in cytochrome c-dependent activation of caspase-3. Cell 1997; 90:405-13.

Li P, Nijhawan D, Budihardjo I, et al. Cytochrome c and dATP-dependent formation of Apaf-1/caspase-9 complex initiates an apoptotic protease cascade. Cell 1997; 91:479-89.

Hu Y, Benedict MA, Wu D, et al. Bcl-XL interacts with Apaf-1 and inhibits Apaf-1-dependent caspase-9 activation. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 1998; 95:4386-91.