Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 9, 2026

Identifying Caspases and their Motifs that Cleave Proteins During Influenza A Virus Infection
Published on: July 21, 2022
Requirement for shrimp caspase in apoptosis against virus infection
1Key Laboratory of Marine Biogenetic Resources, Third Institute of Oceanography, State Oceanic Administration, Xiamen 361005, PR China.
Abstract:
Caspases are central effectors in apoptosis. In this investigation, a novel caspase gene (designated as PjCaspase) obtained from the marine shrimp Marsupenaeus japonicus was found to be significantly upregulated in survivors of WSSV-challenged shrimp, suggesting that it might be involved in shrimp antiviral immunity. As revealed by RNAi assays, when the PjCaspase gene was silenced by gene-specific siRNA, the WSSV-induced apoptosis was significantly inhibited. The results showed that the PjCaspase gene was essential in the virus-induced apoptosis of shrimp. Based on the quantitative PCR detection, it was shown that the PjCaspase gene silencing resulted in the increase of virus copies, indicating that apoptosis played a key role in antiviral process of shrimp. As well known, caspase-3 and -8 are crucial caspases in apoptosis. The discovery of PjCaspase in this study would contribute another essential caspase involved in apoptosis against virus infection, which might reveal an ancient mechanism of caspase activation in invertebrate immunity against viruses.
Related Concept Videos
Caspases
The Extrinsic Apoptotic Pathway
The Antiviral System of Bacteria and Archaea: CRISPR
Leaky Scanning
CRISPR and crRNAs
The CRISPR-Cas system stores a copy of foreign DNA in the host genome and uses it to identify the foreign DNA upon reinfection. CRISPR-Cas has three different...
The Intrinsic Apoptotic Pathway

