Life and death in a FLASH

Article Abstract:

Imai and colleagues have described a new mammalian protein involved in cellular suicide. The FLASH protein interacts with the death effector domain (DED) of caspase-8, and has a region of homology to CED-4/Apaf-1. It is suggested that FLASH is involved in CD95-induced apoptosis. Cross linking studies showed the recruitment of FLASH to the CD95 receptor in the cell, followed by CD95-induced apoptosis facilitated by FLASH overexpression. FLASH mutants, encoding the DED-like or CED-4-like region, then inhibited apoptosis in a dominant-negative way.

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Death deceiver

Article Abstract:

A newly discovered mechanism used by tumours to avoid a death signal is reported by Pitti and colleagues. Fas is a receptor on many different cells, delivering a signal leading to cell death. A molecule has been identified by Pitti and colleagues, named decoy receptor 3 (DcR3), that binds to FasL and prevents its binding to Fas. DcR3's amplification in certain lung and colon carcinomas, indicates that Fas/FasL interactions restrict cancer growth, and that cells that express higher rates of DcR3 are more likely to be cancerous.

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