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Updated: Jun 21, 2026

Lighting Up the Pathways to Caspase Activation Using Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation
Published on: March 5, 2018
Several nuclear events during apoptosis depend on caspase-3 activation but do not constitute a common pathway
Lisa Trisciuoglio1, Marco Emilio Bianchi
1Chromatin Dynamics Unit, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milano, Italy.
Abstract:
A number of nuclear events occur during apoptosis, including DNA laddering, nuclear lamina breakdown, phosphorylation of histones H2B and histone H2AX, and the tight binding to chromatin of HMGB1 and CAD, the nuclease responsible for DNA laddering. We have performed an epistasis analysis to investigate whether these events cluster together in pathways. We find that all depend directly or indirectly on caspase-3 activation. CAD activation, H2AX phosphorylation and DNA laddering cluster together into a pathway, but all other events appear to be independent of each other downstream of caspase-3, and likely evolved subject to different functional pressures.
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Cell death was observed in the early 19th century, but there was no experimental evidence to prove it. In 1842, Carl Vogt first discovered cell death in a metamorphic toad; however, it was not termed ‘cell death.’ Scientists discovered different cell death pathways only in the 20th century...

