Driver of death-signaling

Daichii scientists last week described in Nature Medicine the identification of SADS (small accelerator of death-signaling), which is expressed in lung, liver, small intestine, lung and brain tissue. Fas is a transmembrane receptor that signals through the Fas-death signaling complex (Fas-DISC), which is comprised of Fas, caspase-8, and FADD (Fas-associated protein with death domain). By immunoprecipitation of the Fas-DISC complex, the researchers were able to isolate a previously unknown fourth component of Fas-DISC that they named SADS.

The researchers showed SADS's in vitro ability to induce apoptosis in Fas-responsive cell lines by transfection of cell lines with an inducible vector carrying the SADS gene. Fas-mediated apoptosis was delayed in the same cell lines transfected with a SADS antisense vector. ...