Measurement of the Caspase-1-Like Activity of Vacuolar Processing Enzyme in Plants

Caspase-like activities are essential to regulate programed cell death in plants. Although no caspase orthologous enzymes with aspartic acid specificity have been identified in plants, vacuolar processing enzyme (VPE) exhibits a caspase-1-like activity. In this chapter, we introduce two methods for the measurement of the caspase-1-like/VPE activity. These methods are based on the cleavage of caspase-1 specific synthetic substrates and on monitoring the active forms of VPE using a biotinylated-inhibitor blot analysis. Both methods are also adaptable to other plant caspase-like activities.