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Updated: May 9, 2026

Lighting Up the Pathways to Caspase Activation Using Bimolecular Fluorescence Complementation
Published on: March 5, 2018
Small-molecule procaspase activators identified using fluorescence polarization
Chris J Vickers1, Gonzalo E González-Páez, Jeffrey C Umotoy
1Department of Molecular and Experimental Medicine and Chemical Physiology, The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California 92037, USA.
Abstract:
Wake up, protein! Small molecules that directly activate proteins are rare and their discovery opens new avenues for the development of drugs and chemical tools to probe the functions and mechanisms of protein targets. To address the one-sided dichotomy between enzyme inhibition and activation, we describe a series of procaspase activators as chemical tools in the study of caspase biology.
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