• Jean-Marie Bruey, Nathalie Bruey-Sedano, Frederic Luciano, Dayong Zhai, Ruchi Balpai, Chunyan Xu, Christina L Kress, Beatrice Bailly-Maitre, Xiaoqing Li, Andrei Osterman, Shu-ichi Matsuzawa, Alexey V Terskikh, Benjamin Faustin, and John C Reed.
• Burnham Institute for Medical Research, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
• Cell. 2007 Apr 6;129(1):45-56.

AbstractCaspases are intracellular proteases that cleave substrates involved in apoptosis or inflammation. In C. elegans, a paradigm for caspase regulation exists in which caspase CED-3 is activated by nucleotide-binding protein CED-4, which is suppressed by Bcl-2-family protein CED-9. We have identified a mammalian analog of this caspase-regulatory system in the NLR-family protein NALP1, a nucleotide-dependent activator of cytokine-processing protease caspase-1, which responds to bacterial ligand muramyl-dipeptide (MDP). Antiapoptotic proteins Bcl-2 and Bcl-X(L) bind and suppress NALP1, reducing caspase-1 activation and interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta) production. When exposed to MDP, Bcl-2-deficient macrophages exhibit more caspase-1 processing and IL-1beta production, whereas Bcl-2-overexpressing macrophages demonstrate less caspase-1 processing and IL-1beta production. The findings reveal an interaction of host defense and apoptosis machinery.

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